MEMORIAL  OF  NATHANIEL  W.  TAYLOR,  D.  D, 
THREE  SERMONS 


enwrial  0f 


NATHANIEL  ¥.  TAILOR,  D.  J). 


MEMORIAL 


OP 


NATHANIEL  ¥.  TAILOR,  D.  D. 


THREE    SERMONS:, 

BY 

LEONARD  BACON,  D.  D., 

PASTOR  OP  THE  CENTER  CHURCH  ; 

SAMUEL  W.  S.  DUTTON,  D.  D., 

PASTOR  OP  THE  NORTH  CHURCH; 

GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  A.  M., 

r 

PROFESSOR  IN  YALE  COLLEOK. 


PUBLISHED  BY  REQUEST. 


NEW  HAVEN : 

PUBLISHED  BY  THOMAS  H.  PEASE. 
1858. 


A    SERMON 
AT  THE  FUNERAL  OP  NATHANIEL  W.  TAYLOR,  D.  D., 

IN  THE  CENTER  CHURCH,  MARCH  12,  1858, 

BY  LEONARD  BACON,  D.  D.,  PASTOR. 


IF,  in  these  obsequies,  we  might  regard  exclusively  the  grief 
that  darkens  the  circle  of  domestic  love  and  the  wider  circle  of 
personal  and  private  friendship,  we  could  not  but  turn  to  some 
of  those  familiar  themes  of  Christian  consolation  which  are 
always  fresh  and  bright  in  the  hour  of  sorrow.  But  the  grief 
which  brings  us  together  in  this  concourse,  is  something  more 
than  an  ordinary  sympathy  with  those  who  are  following  the 
remains  of  a  husband  and  father  to  the  grave.  A  great  and 
honored  institution  of  sacred  learning  is  here  to-day  as  a  mourner. 
Hundreds  of  the  public  and  official  ministers  of  God's  word — 
some  of  them  veterans  in  the  service — some  of  them  in  this 
assembly,  and  some  far  away  in  the  remotest  regions  to  which 
the  intelligence  of  this  bereavement  has  been  conveyed  on  the 
lines  of  magnetic  communication — feel  in  their  hearts  the  break- 
ing of  the  tie  that  bound  them  to  their  venerated  teacher.  Not 
the  aged  members  of  one  church  only,  but  all  these  churches, 
share  in  the  bereavement.  A  great  light  has  been  extinguished  : 
no,  not  extinguished,  but  removed  to  shine  on  us,  henceforth, 
only  from  the  historic  past ;  removed  to  shine  in  that  high  and 
blessed  sphere  where  "  they  that  are  wise  shall  shine  as  the 
brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  they  that  turn  many  to  right- 
eousness, as  the  stars  forever  and  ever." 

The  public  relation,  then,  of  these  funeral  services,  leads  me 
to  select,  as  the  subject  of  brief  discourse,  and  as  opening  a 
field  of  thought  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  the  words  in  which 
our  Saviour  spoke  of  John  the  Baptist  and  his  ministry. 

JOHN  V.  35.    HE  WAS  A  BURRING  ASD  A  SHINING  LIGHT  ;  AND  YE  WERE  WILL- 
ING FOR  A  SEASON  TO  REJOICE  IN  HIK  LIGHT. 

The  man  of  whom  these  words  were  spoken  had  a  remarkable 
eminence  as  a  minister  of  God  and  a  preacher  of  righteousness. 
Not  only  was  his  special  function  one  that  made  him  eminent 


above  ail  ancient  prophets,  but  he  was  eminent  in  the  greatness 
of  his  gifts,  in  the  power  of  his  preaching,  in  the  impression 
which  he  made  upon  his  hearers,  in  the  wide  agitation  and  in- 
quiry that  were  caused  by  his  labors,  and  in  the  general  move- 
ment of  expectation  and  of  personal  repentance  and  reformation 
which  he  inaugurated,  as  preparatory  to  the  coming  of  that 
new  kingdom  of  God  which  the  Christ,  long  promised  and 
waited  for,  was  then  about  to  establish. 

Christ  himself  is  the  light  of  the  world — the  true  light — the 
sun  of  righteousness,  with  healing  in  his  wings.  He  himself 
testifies,  "  I  am  the  light  of  the  world  :  he  that  folio  we  th  me 
shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  have  the  light  of  life/' 
His  coming  into  the  world  is  the  rising  of  an  infinite  light  on 
them  who  were  in  darkness.  He  makes  God,  duty,  sin,  and  the 
relations  of  the  conscious  soul  to  God  and  eternity,  manifest  in 
this  dark  world,  and  "  that  which  maketh  manifest  is  light." 
Where  he  is  made  known  in  the  story  of  his  incarnation,  of  his 
life  on  earth,  of  his  death  and  resurrection,  and  of  his  ascension 
and  kingdom — where  he  is  made  known  in  the  divine  beauty  of 
his  character,  in  the  simple  grandeur  and  power  of  his  teaching, 
and  in  the  ineffable  condescension  and  ineffable  glory  of  his  re- 
deeming work — there  is  light ;  for  there  God  is  revealed  to 
men,  and  especially  revealed  to  every  attentive,  trembling,  peni- 
tent and  believing  soul. 

Yet  Christ  says  to  his  disciples,  "  Ye  are  the  light  of  the 
world."  They  are  the  light  of  the  world  because  he  shines  in 
them,  and  by  means  of  them  he  makes  God  manifest  to  men. 
Every  believer  in  Christ  becomes  a  witness  for  him,  and  an  in- 
stance and  illustration  of  his  power  to  save.  Every  believer  in 
whom  Christ  is  the  hope  of  glory,  and  who,  being  in  Christ, 
becomes  a  new  creature,  renewed  in  knowledge  and  true  holiness, 
shines  as  a  light  in  the  world,  holding  forth  the  word  of  life. 
Christ  is  with  them — he  hath  given  them  light ;  and  therefore, 
where  such  men  are,  there  God  is  known — there  God's  govern- 
ment, God's  holy  displeasure  against  sin,  God's  mercy  and  for- 
giveness, and  all  the  soul's  relations  to  the  unseen  world,  are 
felt  to  be  realities.  Where  such  men  are,  an  illumination  from 
Christ  strikes  on  the  consciences  of  all  who  become  acquainted 
with  their  principles,  aims,  sympathies  and  hopes.  It  is  by 
virtue  of  their  relation  to  Christ,  and  of  the  testimony  which 
they  give  for  him,  that  they  are  the  light  of  the  worl^l. 

Thus  it  becomes  evident  in  what  distinctive  sense  it  is  that 
every  true  minister  of  Christ  is,  in  the  measure  of  his  gifts  and 
of  his  fidelity  in  using  them,  a  light  in  the  world.  His  work  is 


to  make  Christ  known — to  call  men  to  Christ — to  overcome,  by 
teaching  and  persuasion,  the  difficulties  which  hinder  men  from 
seeing  Christ  and  feeling  the  attraction  of  the  cross — to  say,  as 
John  said,  when  he  saw  Jesus  coming  to  him,  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God."  His  work  is  like  that  of  Christ's  immediate 
fore-runner,  of  whom  we  read,  "The  same  came  for  a  witness,  to 
bear  witness  of  the  Light,  that  all  men  through  him  might  be- 
lieve. He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  of 
that  Light." 

It  is  no  misapplication,  then,  of  the  words  in  which  the 
Saviour  spoke  of  John  the  Baptist,  if  we  use  them  as  descrip- 
tive of  that  eminent  preacher  of  Christ,  whose  work  of  almost 
half  a  century  is  now  finished.  We  honor  Christ  when  we  say 
of  his  departed  servant,  "  He  was  a  burning  and  shining  light, 
and  ye  were  willing  for  a  season  to  rejoice  in  that  light." 

More  than  forty-eight  years  ago,  the  First  Church  in  this  city, 
having  rejoiced  for  a  season  in  the  stirring  and  powerful  ministry 
of  Moses  Stuart,  was  deprived  of  its  pastor  by  his  removal  to 
that  different  service  in  which  he  afterwards  became  so  widely 
celebrated.  Two  years  and  three  months  elapsed  before  the 
vacancy  was  filled.  At  last,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1812,  forty- 
six  years  ago,  another  pastor  was  ordained.  He  was  the  only 
candidate  on  whom,  in  all  that  period,  the  choice  of  the  Church 
and  Society  had  fallen.  Once  he  had  declined  their  invitation, 
and  it  was  only  in  deference  to  a  second  and  more  harmonious 
call  that  he  consented  to  accept  the  weighty  charge. 

It  was  indeed  a  weighty  charge  which  he  accepted.  The 
brief  ministry  of  his  immediate  predecessor  had  been  attended 
by  a  memorable  revival  of  religion,  the  first  great  awakening 
which  this  Church  or  this  town  had  known  in  half  a  century. 
A  revolution  had  been  effected  in  the  character  of  the  Church 
and  in  its  religious  habits  and  sympathies,  bringing  it  over  to 
the  side  of  what  was  then  called  "  New  Divinity."  But  the 
new  order  of  things  had  hardly  been  consolidated.  There  were 
elements  in  the  Church,  which  might  easily  have  fermented  into 
discord,  find  which  required  special  gifts  of  power  and  wisdom 
in  the  pastor.  A  rash  man,  or  a  man  of  only  moderate  power 
in  the  pulpit,  would  have  been  wholly  unfit  to  encounter  the 
difficulties  of  the  crisis.  But  the  pastor  who  came  to  the  task 
of  guiding  the  Church,  and  of  preaching  the  word  of  God  to 
the  people  here,  though  he  was  a  young  man,  less  than  five 
years  a  graduate,  and  though  wholly  unexperienced  in  pas- 
toral responsibilities,  brought  with  him  a  more  than  ordinary 
preparation  for  his  work.  In  his  study  of  theology  he  had  had 


the  benefit  of  a  special  relation  to  his  illustrious  teacher.  To 
say  that  he  was  a  favorite  pupil  of  President  Dwight,  does  not 
adequately  express  the  intimacy  of  the  relation  between  them. 
Residing  for  two  years  in  the  family  of  the  President,  writing 
habitually  from  the  dictation  of  those  eloquent  lips,  he  was  not 
a  mere  amanuensis,  nor  merely  a  favorite  pupil.  In  the  relation 
thus  established,  there  was  the  mutual  attraction  and  mutual 
excitement  of  two  powerful  and  kindred  minds,  unequal  indeed 
in  age  and  office,  each  differing  from  the  other  in  many  pecu- 
liarities of  intellectual  constitution,  yet  both  alike  profoundly 
interested  in  the  great  questions  and  debates  which  form  the 
science  of  theology.  It  was  in  such  an  intimacy,  and  under 
such  an  influence,  that  the  young  pastor  of  this  Church  in  1812 
had  been  trained  to  handle  the  great  themes  of  God's  revelation 
to  men. 

His  ministry  here  was  even  more  honored  than  that  of  his 
predecessor.  Whatever  lack  of  unanimity  there  may  have 
been  in  regard  to  his  settlement,  all  traces  of  it  we're  soon  re- 
moved by  the  unquestionable  power  and  fidelity  of  his  public 
ministrations  and  the  suavity  of  his  private  intercourse  with 
families  and  individuals.  Those  solid  and  massive  discourses, 
full  of  linked  and  twisted  logic,  yet  giving  out  at  every  point 
sharp  flashes  of  electric  fire,  was  just  what  was  needed  to  carry 
on  the  work  which  his  predecessor  had  begun.  In  the  third 
year  of  his  ministry,  he  began  to  see  a  great  result  of  his  labors. 
That  year,  1815,  was  marked  in  the  history  of  this  Church,  and 
in  the  religious  history  of  the  city  and  the  College,  as  a  year 
of  awakening  and  of  the  conversion  of  souls  to  Christ.  Another 
and  more  signal  revival  of  God's  work  began  in  the  year  1820, 
and  continued  till  the  close  of  the  ensuing  year.  Some  of  those 
whose  heads  are  now  gray,  remember  with  the  deepest  sensibility, 
that  Sabbath,  the  last  day  of  the  year  1820,  when  more  than 
seventy  persons,  old  and  young  and  of  every  condition  in  life, 
filled  those  aisles,  as  they  came  from  their  seats  to  take  the 
vows  of  God  upon  thenij  and  to  enter  into  covenant  with  the 
Church.  That  was  a  day  for  which  an  earnest  and  willing 
pastor  might  well  be  willing  to  die.  How  many  of  that  com- 
pany, whom  the  pastor  then  counted  with  joy  as  the  seals  of 
his  ministry,  and  whom  he  then  welcomed  to  the  communion 
of  the  saints  on  earth,  have  now  welcomed  him  to  the  fellowship 
of  the  glorified  in  heaven  ! 

His  official  connection  with  this  Church  was  dissolved  in  De- 
cember, 1822.  The  reorganization  of  the  system  of  theological 
education  in  Yale  College,  restoring  the  original  design  of  the 


institution  by  giving  to  it  a  distinct  Faculty  of  Theology,  was 
in  part  the  result  of  his  great  success  in  preaching  the  G-ospel, 
and  of  those  theological  studies  of  his  which  were  identified 
with  the  power  of  his  ministry.  There  were  those  who  believed 
that  one  so  gifted  as  he  was  for  the  systematic  exposition  of 
Divine  truth,  and  so  successful  in  winning  souls,  ought  to  have 
the  opportunity  of  employing  his  gifts,  and  of  turning  his  ex- 
perience and  skill  to  the  best  account,  in  the  special  work  of 
training  men  to  preach  the  Gospel.  I  think  I  do  not  speak  at 
random  when  I  say  that  the  Dwight  professorship  was  founded 
for  him,  and  that  the  Theological  Department  was  planned  with 
the  expectation  of  making  him  a  teacher  of  theology.  At  the 
age  of  thirty-six,  he  relinquished  the  pastoral  office,  and  with  a 
physical  constitution  seriously  impaired  by  the  intense  and  long 
continued  mental  excitement  which  had  characterized  his  minis- 
try, he  entered  on  his  new  employment.  His  lecture  room  was 
soon  filled  ;  and  his  pupils,  fascinated  with  the  charm  of  his 
enthusiasm  in  the  sublime  science  which  he  taught,  were  them- 
selves enthusiastic  in  their  admiration  of  his  teaching.  This  is 
the  thirty-sixth  year  of  his  service  in  that  chair  of  instruction. 
In  all,  he  has  had  nearly  seven  hundred  pupils.  Of  these,  not 
a  few  have  been — not  a  few  are  now — widely  honored  for  their 
work's  sake.  Their  usefulness  in  the  field,  which  is  the  world, 
is  the  expansion  and  perpetuation  of  his.  Their  grateful  re- 
membrance of  him — their  affectionate  testimony  to  the  exciting 
and  guiding  power  of  his  great  mind — is  his  living  monument. 
His  retirement  from  the  pastoral  office  did  not  imply  in  his 
thought  any  relinquishment  of  the  work  of  the  ministry.  For 
a  long  course  of  years,  his  weekly  labor  in  the  pulpit  was  almost 
without  interruption.  To  the  congregation  of  his  former  charge 
he  continued  to  preach,  at  the  invitation  of  their  committee, 
with  great  frequency,  and  to  their  great  satisfaction,  till  he  sus- 
pected that  his  readiness  to  do  so  was  diminishing  their  sense  of 
the  necessity  of  choosing  a  new  pastor.  Only  a  year  and  a  half 
after  the  settlement  of  his  successor,  he  began  to  preach  (Sept. 
1826)  to  the  Third  Congregational  Church,  then  just  instituted, 
and  till  1830  he  was,  in  effect,  though  not  in  form,  its  pastor. 
For  nearly  a  year  he  preached,  statedly,  to  the  North  Church 
in  Hartford.  In  the  memorable  year  1831,  his  labors,  as  a 
preacher,  were  abundant  in  these  churches  and  elsewhere  ;  for 
in  the  wide  religious  awakening  of  that  year,  such  preaching  as 
his  was  greatly  sought  after.  There  is  no  Congregational  church 
in  this  city,  almost  none  in  this  neighborhood  of  churches,  which 
has  not,  in  some  vacancy  of  its  pastorate,  sought  and  enjoyed 


8 

his  powerful  ministration  of  the  word.  Probably  in  every  one 
of  these  churches  there  are  some  who  acknowledge,  with  grate- 
ful sensibility,  the  deep  impression  which  the  Gospel,  ministered 
by  him,  has  stamped  upon  their  spiritual  being  forever. 

Others  may  speak,  elsewhere,  of  his  theological  controversies, 
and  may  criticise  the  peculiarities  of  his  philosophical  and  theo- 
logical system.  But  I  may  be  allowed  to  say,  that  those  who 
knew  him  best,  know  how  painful  controversy,  as  distinguished 
from  discussion,  was  to  him.  He  loved  discussion  ;  his  mind 
rushed  to  an  argument  like  a  war-horse  to  the  battle  ;  he  re- 
joiced in  the  well-guarded  statement  and  strenuous  defense  of 
truth  ;  his  intellectual  nature  exulted  in  the  discovery  of  a  latent 
inaccuracy  ;  he  had  an  instinctive  and  ineradicable  confidence 
in  the  power  of  logic  to  convince  ;  but  controversy,  with  its 
personal  alienations,  its  exasperating  imputations,  and  its  too 
frequent  appeals  to  prejudice  and  passion,  was  what  his  soul 
abhorred.  In  the  earnestness  of  debate  he  might  charge  an 
opponent  with  absurdity  and  nonsense  ;  but  it  was  not  his  wont 
to  charge  a  brother  with  heresy,  or  to  represent  an  unguarded 
statement  or  an  inconclusive  argument  as  identical  with  heresy. 
How  well  he  continued  to  love  old  friends,  whom  the  sharpness 
of  theological  difference  had  alienated  from  him,  they  can  tell 
who  remember  his  brotherly  visit  to  the  death-bed  of  the  one 
whom  he  loved  the  most,  and  who,  in  a  pious  but  erroneous 
zeal,  had  done  the  most  to  destroy  his  good  name.  There  were 
no  dry  eyes  in  that  chamber  of  suffering  when  Taylor  fell  weep- 
ing on  the  neck  of  Nettleton  and  kissed  him. 

I  may  speak  the  more  freely  in  commendation  of  him  as  a 
theologian — and  perhaps  with  the  more  weight — inasmuch  as  it 
is  no  secret  that  there  are  some  points  in  his  philosophy,  and 
some  principles  iu  his  method  of  solving  certain  difficulties  in 
theology,  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  accept.  Let  me  say, 
then,  that  he  was  the  last,  as  the  elder  Edwards  was  the  first, 
of  the  great  masters  in  the  distinctive  theology  of  New  England. 
When  I  speak  of  great  masters  in  theology,  I  do  not  mean  all 
who  have  been  useful  or  eminent  as  instructors  of  candidates  for 
the  ministry,  or  who  have  powerfully  maintained  and  defended 
the  accepted  truth.  I  mean  those  who  have  contributed  to  the 
progress  of  thought  by  more  exact  definitions  and  distinctions 
in  theology.  The  names  in  that  succession,  from  the  elder 
Edwards,  are  few, — Hopkins,  the  younger  Edwards,  Smalley, 
Emmons,  Taylor, — and  the  last,  not  least  in  the  illustrious  dy- 
nasty. We  need  not  claim  for  any  of  those  great  names  the 
honor  of  infallibility.  We  need  not  accept  the  opinions  of  any 


of  them  as  great  discoveries,  free  from  all  mixture  of  error — but 
these  men  have  been  the  great  originators  of  thought  in  the 
progress  of  the  New  England  theology ;  and  their  spirits  rule 
us,  and  will  rule  us  "  from  their  sceptered  urns." 

The  chief  contribution  which  the  last  of  these  great  masters 
has  made  to  the  progress  and  defence  of  theological  science,  is 
in  the  clearness  and  fullness  with  which  his  teachings  has  de- 
veloped the  distinction  and  mutual  relations  between  God's  all- 
comprehending  providence  and  God's  government  over  his  rea- 
sonable and  responsible  creatures.  Doubtless  this  momentous 
distinction  was  recognized  in  theology  before  he  began  to  illus- 
trate and  apply  it,  just  as  the  distinction  between  natural  and 
moral  inability  was  recognized  before  Smalley  defined  and  un- 
folded it.  But  the  effect  of  his  teaching  is  felt  to-day  by  theo- 
logians of  various  schools  and  systems,  who  have  never  con- 
sciously accepted  any  of  his  formulas  ;  and  it  will  continue  to 
be  felt  when  the  distinctive  theology  of  New  England  shall 
have  been  merged  in  the  general  and  united  progress  which  the 
universal  Church  is  yet  to  make  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  of 
the  glories  of  his  word. 

But  I  may  not  dwell  upon  this  particular  aspect  of  what  this 
servant  of  God  has  done  in  the  work  of  advancing  the  knowl- 
edge of  truth.  After  all,  it  was  by  his  power  as  a  preacher  of 
the  word,  more  than  by  any  power  which  he  exerted  as  a  mere 
teacher  of  theology,  that  he  was  a  burning  and  a  shining  light. 
Those  sermons  of  his,  which  have  been  heard  by  so  many  thou- 
sands, especially  jn  times  of  religious  awakening — those  strong 
and  terrible  appeals  to  the  conscience  of  the  soul  unreconciled 
to  God — those  magnificent  and  more  than  Miltonic  portraitures 
of  God's  government — those  expostulations  in  the  name  of  In- 
finite Pity — those  thunderings  and  lightnings  from  eternity — 
these,  in  the  deep  heavy  tones  of  that  trumpet  voice,  and  with 
the  impressive  flashes  of  that  eye  through  which  the  soul  looked 
out  from  beneath  the  "  dome  of  thought " — these  live  in  our 
remembrance,  and  will  live  in  tradition,  after  us — these  live  iti 
the  impression  they  have  made  on  our  immortal  nature.  It  \vas 
in  times  of  religious  awakening  and  revival,  that  he  loved  to 
preach.  His  favorite  sermons  were  composed  under  such  ex- 
citements ;  and  to  his  own  mind  every  one  of  them  was  redolent 
with  blessed  memories  of  success.  A  revived,  awed,  anxious 
state  of  religious  feeling,  in  the  community,  was  needed,  that 
they  might  have  their  appropriate  surroundings,  and  might  pro- 
duce their  legitimate  effect.  All  his  theology  was  shaped  and 
framed  with  reference  to  the  doctrine  and  work  of  the  conversion 

2 


10 

of  sinners  to  God.  If  he  could  have  had  his  choice,  he  would 
have  said,  Let  me  die  in  a  time  of  religious  revival.  He  would 
chosen  that  his  funeral  should  be  attended  by  a  throng  of  souls 
awake  and  alive  to  the  great  realities  of  responsibility  and  eter- 
nity. He  would  have  chosen  that  the  silence  of  his  coffin  should 
preach  to  souls  oppressed  with  the  sense  of  need  and  guilt  before 
God.  In  such  a  time  as  those  in  which  he  most  loved  to  labor 
for  Christ,  he  would  have  chosen  to  "  depart  and  be  with  Christ, 
which  is  far  better." 

Five  or  six  weeks  ago,  he  ceased  from  all  his  active  work  ; 
and  like  Aaron  on  the  mountain,  he  put  off  his  garments  and 
lay  down  to  die.  More  than  once,  when  he  was  reminded  of  a 
former  recovery  from  similar  weakness,  he  replied,  "  No,  I  have 
done, — I  can  only  wait,  committing  myself,  like  Stephen,  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  And  so,  waiting  in  humble  trustfulness,  he 
has  passed  away.  Meanwhile,  unconciously  to  him,  a  religious 
thoughtfulness  and  earnestness  has  been  spreading  through  this 
community,  once  so  highly  blessed  with  his  labors.  May  we  not 
say  he  has  died  in  the  midst  of  a  revival  of  religion  ?  Let  us  bury 
him  with  thoughts  like  those  with  which  a  conqueror  is  buried  on 
the  field  of  victory.  Are  there  not  in  this  assembly  many  whose 
souls  are,  even  now,  poised  on  the  choice  between  the  world  and 
God,  between  death  and  life  ?  "  0,  that  those  lips  had  language !" 
0,  for  one  more  utterance  of  the  voice  which  death  has  silenced  ! 
0,  might  we  listen  to  him  yet  again,  here,  in  his  old  place  of 
power  !  But  no  ;  one  by  one,  God's  ministers  must  depart,  to 
utter  his  word  no  more  with  mortal  voice.  Yet  God  remains. 
His  mercy  endureth  forever.  His  Gospel  remains  with  its  of- 
fers and  its  promises.  "  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever."  The  one  true  light  of  the  world,  the  sun  of 
righteousness,  shines  on,  while  the  lesser  stars,  that  reflect  his 
glory,  fade  and  disappear. 

"  Nor  sink  those  stars  in  empty  night, 

But  lose  themselves  in  Heaven's  own  light." 


A   SERMON 

PREACHED  IN  THE  NORTH  CHURCH,  MARCH  14,  1858, 

THE  FIRST  SABBATH  AFTEB  THE  DEATH  OP 

BBV.  NATHANIEL  W.  TAYLOE,  D.  D. 

BY  S.  W.  S.  BUTTON,  D.  D.,  PASTOR. 


HEBREWS  XI.  3.    "AND  BY  IT  HE,  BEING  DEAD,  YET  SPEAKETH." 

THE  great  English  dramatist  puts  into  the  mouth  of  one  of 
his  characters  this  sentiment, 

"  The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them ; 
The  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones." 

Very  different  is  the  testimony  of  God's  word.  While  it  does 
not  deny  that  the  influence  of  evil  deeds  and  of  evil  men  lives 
after  them,  it  declares  that  the  influence  of  good  deeds  and  of 
good  men,  instead  of  being  buried  with  their  bones,  lives  after 
them  with  a  special  and  superior  vitality  and  power.  Thus  it  is 
written,  "  The  memory  of  the  just  is  blessed,  but  the  name  of 
the  wicked  shall  rot."  God,  by  his  providence  and  Spirit, 
watches  over  the  good  deeds  and  character  of  the  righteous, 
preserving  them  in  the  minds  of  men,  that  they  may  speak  with 
beneficial  power  to  succeeding  generations  and  ages.  Thus  four 
thousand  years  after  the  death  of  Abel,  the  sacred  writer  in 
text  said  of  his  righteous  conduct ;  "  By  it  he,  being  dead,  yet 
speaketh."  And  it  is  equally  true  to-day,  six  thousand  years 
after  his  death  ;  "  By  it,  he  being  dead,  yet  speaketh." 

During  the  last  week,  in  this  city,  there  has  passed  away 
from  among  the  living  a  Christian  man,  whom  God  richly  en- 
dowed with  the  gifts  of  nature  and  of  grace,  and  abundantly 
blessed  with  useful  power.  His  eminent  position  as  a  pastor  for 
many  years,  and  as  a  preacher  of  Christ  for  nearly  fifty  years,  in 
this  community  ;  his  great  influence  for  a  third  of  a  century  as 
a  teacher  of  sacred  theology  ;  his  relation  to  this  church  and 
congregation,  as  one  who,  in  the  intervals  of  pastorates,  has 
supplied  your  pulpit  by  his  ministrations  ;  and  his  relation  to 
me  as  my  teacher  and  friend,  whose  advice  commended  me  to 


12 

you,  and  who  by  prayer  and  the  laying  on  of  his  hands  conse- 
crated me  here,  in  my  youth,  to  your  service  for  Christ's  sake, 
in  the  work  of  the  sacred  ministry — these  considerations  strongly 
move  me  to  improve  this  occasion  by  a  sketch  of  his  life  and 
services,  by  which  "he,  being  dead,  yet  speaketh." 

He  was  born  in  New  Milfordf,  Conn.,  June  23,  1786,  the  son 
of  Nathaniel  Taylor,  and  the  grandson  of  Rev.  Nathaniel  Tay- 
lor, who  was  for  fifty-three  years  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church  in  that  town.  He  was  named  Nathaniel  William — 
Nathaniel  from  his  father  and  grandfather,  and  William  from 
his  father's  brother,  who  graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1785.  He 
fitted  for  college  with  Dr.  Azel  Backus,  pastor  of  the  Church 
in  Bethlehem,  and  afterwards  President  of  Hamilton  College, 
who  in  his  family  prepared  for  college  many  youth,  especially 
of  Litchfield  county.  I  have  often  heard  my  father,  who  pre- 
pared for  college  with  Dr.  Backus  at  the  same  time  with  young 
Taylor,  speak  of  his  early  promise  and  especially  of  his  boyish 
beauty  and  amiableness.  He  graduated  at  Yale  College  in 
1807,  six  years  from  the  time  of  his  entrance,  having  been  in- 
terrupted two  years  by  sickness. 

It  was  at  some  time  during  his  college  life,  in  his  senior  year 
I  think,  that  he  became  decidedly  a  servant  of  Christ.  Re- 
specting that  event  I  have  heard  him  make  a  statement  which 
is  very  instructive  and  monitory.  There  was  a  classmate  and 
particular  friend  of  his,  who  at  the  same  time,  by  the  working 
of  the  divine  Spirit,  was  concerned  for  his  eternal  interests.  The 
two  friends  communicated  their  feelings  to  each  other.  And 
one  day,  while  walking  together,  they  raised  the  question 
whether  they  should  then  call  on  President  Dwight,  who  had 
invited  all  persons  thoughtful  upon  religion  to  call  and  converse 
with  him.  At  length,  while  still  talking  and  doubting  on  that 
question,  they  came  to  President  D wight's  gate.  There  they 
stopped  and  hesitated.  At  length  Taylor  said,  "  Well,  I  shall 
go  in."  if  Well,  (said  his  companion,)  I  think  I  will  not,  to- 
day." Taylor  went  in  ;  and  the  result  of  his  conversation  with 
that  eminent  Christian  guide  was  that  he  gave  himself  to  Christ 
in  a  covenant  never  to  be  broken,  and  became  "  a  burning  and 
a  shining  light "  in  his  kingdom.  His  companion  from  that 
time  thought  less  and  less  on  the  subject ;  and,  though  he  lived 
for  many  years  afterward,  a  respectable  man,  he  died  without 
giving  any  evidence  of  a  saving  interest  in  Christ.  Such  are 
the  crises  in  the  history  of  immortal  souls.  Such  are  the  turn- 
ing points  in  eternal  destiny.  Thus  it  is  that  companions  travel 
together  till  they  come  to  where  they  see  plainly  the  open  path 


13 

to  Christ.  They  consider ;  they  decide ;  the  one  taking  the  way 
to  everlasting  life,  and  the  other  pursuing  the  way  to  everlast- 
ing death.  Oh,  let  all  see  to  it  that  in  these  crises  of  eternal 
destiny,  they  act  aright.  Kegard  the  divine  warning,  and  heed 
the  divine  entreaty,  "  Quench  not  the  spirit." 

Mr.  Taylor,  after  graduation,  spent  an  unusual  time  for  that 
period^  five  years,  in  the  study  of  Theology  ;  being  two  years 
of  the  time  in  the  family  of  President  Dwight,  as  his  amanu- 
ensis and  private  pupil.  In  the  year  1812,  when  he  was  twenty- 
six  years  old,  he  was  ordained  Pastor  of  the  First  Church  in 
this  city,  as  the  successor  of  Professor  Stuart,  who  had  been 
removed  to  the  newly  established  Theological  Seminary  at  An- 
dover.  Ten  years  after,  in  1822,  when  the  corporation  of  Yale 
College,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  design  of  its  founders  that 
a  chief  object  of  the  institution  should  be  to  prepare  young 
men  for  the  sacred  ministry,  established  a  theological  school  in 
connection  with  it,  he  was  chosen,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  to 
the  Dwight  Professorship  of  Didactic  Theology.  This  profes- 
sorship had  been  endowed  by  the  liberality  of  the  late  Mr. 
Timothy  Dwight,  the  eldest  son  of  Dr.  Dwight,  and  was  en- 
dowed by  him  chiefly  that  it  might  be  filled  by  his  admired 
friend,  Dr.  Taylor,  who  had  already  shown  himself,  both  by  his 
sermons  and  by  his  published  defences  of  Christian  truth  and 
doctrine,  to  be  a  master  in  sacred  theology.  In  this  position  he 
remained  until  his  death  at  the  age  of  nearly  seventy-two,  a 
period  of  thirty-six  years. 

Dr.  Taylor  did  not,  however,  on  entering  the  professorship, 
relinquish  preaching,  which  he  greatly  loved.  He  often  preached 
to  the  students  in  college,  especially  in  times  of  unusual  reli- 
gious interest,  and  he  was  always  ready  in  his  room  to  receive 
and  direct  inquirers  in  the  way  of  life  ;  and  hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds of  young  men,  afterward  laborers  in  the  Lord's  vineyard 
all  over  this  land  and  the  world,  have  blessed  God  for  his  suc- 
cessful guidance  of  their  awakened  souls.  When  the  Third 
Church  was  formed  in  1826,  he  preached  for  them  the  greater 
part  of  the  time  till  their  first  pastor  was  ordained,  nearly  four 
years.  For  the  church  which  is  now  the  College  street  Church, 
then  the  Free  Church,  he  preached  for  a  considerable  period 
before  the  installation  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ludlow.  The  pulpit  of » 
this  Church  fie  supplied  a  large  part  of  the  time  during  the  in- 
terval of  four  and  a  half  years  between  the  pastorates  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Merwin  and  Rev.  Mr.  Sawyer.  When  the  Chapel  street 
Church  was  organized,  he  preached  for  them.  And  then,  when- 
ever there  was  any  unusual  interest  in  religion,  till  his  physical 


14 

vigor  began  to  be  impaired,  he  was  ready  to  help,  and  on  account 
of  the  great  fitness  and  power  of  his  preaching  for  such  times, 
,he  was  frequently  called  on  to  help,  the  pastors  of  the  city.  He 
has  often  been  employed  by  the  churches  in  neighboring  towns, 
to  supply  their  pulpits,  when  they  have  been  destitute  of  a 
pastor.  Veiy  few  are  the  churches  in  this  county  which  he  has 
not  served  in  this  way,  and  in  which  there  have  not  been  seals 
of  his  ministry.  And  few  have  been  the  Sabbaths  during  his 
long  professorship,  until  the  few  years  past  of  his  advanced  age, 
in  which  he  was  not  engaged  in  his  favorite  employment  of 
preaching  the  gospel. 

Such  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  life  of  Dr.  Taylor,  showing 
that  not  only  the  College,  not  only  the  Church  of  which  he  was 
once  pastor,  but  all  this  community,  and  the  people  of  many 
other  communities,  those  to  whom  he  preached  in  person,  and 
those,  far  more  numerous,  to  whom  he  has  preached  through 
the  pupils  whom  he  has  taught  to  preach,  have  an  interest  and 
property  in  his  memory. 

The  characteristics  of  Dr.  Taylor's  labors  in  the  two  depart- 
ments in  which  he  has  been  engaged  as  pastor  and  preacher,  and 
as  a  teacher  of  theology,  should  receive  our  consideration. 

Barely  .has  a  pastor  been  so  beloved  by  a  people  ;  as  is  well 
attested  by  their  treatment  of  him  during  the  ten  years  of  his 
ministry,  and  perhaps  still  more  by  the  pertinacity  and  liberality 
of  their  affection  for  him  during  the  thirty-six  years  after  he 
left  them.  The  reasons  for  this  are  plain.  He  was  commended 
to  them  by  his  qualities  both  as  a  minister  and  a  man.  They 
kr^ew  that  he  loved  their  souls,  and  they  admired  the  gifts  and 
graces,  the  wisdom,  love  and  power,  with  which  he  commended 
"  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus"  to  their  hearts.  And  in  his  in- 
tercourse with  them,  as  with  all  men,  he  was  free,  frank,  affable, 
courteous,  affectionate,  free  from  all  small  and  mean  traits,  libe- 
ral-minded, open-hearted  and  generous. 

His  physical  qualities  favored  him  much  as  a  preacher — a 
fine  expressive  countenance,  a  beautiful  and  melting  eye,  and  a 
powerful  and  sonorous  voice.  The  first  time  I  heard  him  preach, 
which  was  at  the  Commencement  before  I  entered  college,  when 
he  delivered  his  Concio  ad  Clerum,  though  I  was  a  mere  boy  of 
fourteen  years,  and  incapable  of  appreciating  the  intellectual 
merits  of  his  discourse,  there  were  some  things  which  I  could 
appreciate  ;  and  the  impression  then  made  upon  me  that  he  had 
more  of  manly  beauty  than  I  had  ever  before  seen,  and  was  the 
prince  of  preachers,  is  vivid  to  this  day. 


15 

The  intellectual  qualities  of  his  preaching  were  thorough, 
lucid  and  scriptural  exposition  and  discussion  of  his  subjects  ; 
a  full  and  frank  meeting  of  difficulties  ;  bold  and  powerful 
grappling  with  objections  ;  fearless  reference,  in  defence  of  Scrip- 
tural doctrine  and  precept,  to  reason  and  common  sense  ;  close 
and  pungent  applications  to  conscience  ;  and  earnest  and  touch- 
ing appeals  to  the  heart.  He  scorned  to  evade  the  difficulties 
of  religion,  and  applied  himself  to  their  solution  and  removal. 
He  never  conceded  the  ground  of  reason  to  the  infidel,  but  ever 
maintained,  with  triumphant  confidence,  the  rationality  of 
Christianity  and  the  irrationality  of  infidelity  and  irreligion. 

The  language  in  which  he  clothed  his  thoughts  was  always 
elevated,  yet  terse  and  strong  ;  and  his  imagination,  though 
not  exuberant,  was  vigorous,  and  sometimes,  when  his  mind  was 
filled  and  fired  with  divine  ideas,  it  was  truly  Miltonic. 

The  truths  which  constituted  the  staple  of  his  preaching 
were  the  excellent  and  glorious  character  and  consequent  au- 
thority of  God  ;  the  nature,  the  righteousness  and  glory  of  the 
divine  law  and  government ;  God's  all-comprehending  and 
beneficent  providence  ;  the  guilty  and  lost  condition  of  man 
on  account  of  his  unnecessitated  and  inexcusable  sin  ;  the 
magnifying  of  the  law,  and  the  provision  of  salvation,  by  the 
atoning  sacrifice  of  the  Redeemer,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ; 
the  necessity  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  influence  for  the  conversion 
and  sanctification  of  men,  and  the  motives,  not  to  passivity  but 
to  action,  involved  in  that  truth  ;  the  universality,  freeness  and 
sincerity  of  God's  offers  of  salvation,  and  his  intense  desire  that 
they  should  be  accepted  ;  man's  full  power  and  consequent  ob- 
ligation, as  a  rational  and  accountable  being,  to  obey  all  God's 
requirements,  and  of  course  to  accept  the  offers  of  the  gospel  by 
repentance  and  faith  ;  God's  sovereignty  in  the  bestowment  of 
his  Spirit  ;  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  in  his  wrath  and  everlasting 
punishment ;  the  glories  and  joys  of  holiness  and  heaven  ;  and 
the  infinite  pity  and  persevering  love  of  Jesus  Christ. 

His  preaching  was  specially  designed  and  fitted  to  convict 
men  of  sin  and  lead  tnem  to  Christ — to  produce  in  them  the 
beginning  of  a  Christian  life.  This  was  the  one  point  to  which 
he  made  a  large  part  of  his  preaching  tend.  A  just  criticism 
probably  would  say,  that  it  was  disproportionately  devoted  to 
this  purpose — not  enough  to  the  edification,  instruction  and 
completion  of  the  Christian  character.  This  was  owing  to  the 
fact  that  his  ministry  was  in  the  early  part  of  the  era  of  modern 
revivals  of  religion,  when  the  way  of  repentance  and  faith,  of 
conversion  to  God,  was  confused  and  hedged  up  with  theological 


16 

difficulties  and  inveterate  obstacles  in  the  public  niind.  He, 
therefore,  turned  all  his  mental  powers  upon  the  elucidation  of 
the  subject  of  reconciling  sinful  men  to  God  through  Christ 
by  repentance  and  faith  ;  and  upon  the  doctrines  and  on  the 
mental  states  and  processes  involved  in  that  he  shed  great  light. 

In  this  special  object  of  his  preaching,  the  conversion  of  men, 
he  was  eminently  successful,  among  his  own  people,  and  where- 
ever  he  preached  during  his  long  dispensation  of  the  word.  In 
the  time  of  "  four  days  meetings/'  and  "  protracted  meetings/' 
and  indeed  in  revivals  of  religion  at  every  period,  his  labors 
were  widely  sought.  There  are  doubtless  many  present  who 
recollect,  as  I  do,  the  impressive  power  of  his  sermons  in  the 
protracted  meetings  in  this  city  in  1831  and  1832.  No  instru- 
mentality at  that  period  was  more  blest  with  success  than  his. 

Such  qualities  of  mind,  and  heart,  and  person,  employed  in 
the  use  of  such  truths,  made  Dr.  Taylor  one  of  the  ablest 
preachers  of  his  time.  Indeed,  for  the  effective  presentation  in 
a  discourse  of  a  solid  body  of  pertinent  scriptural  truth, — for 
continued  and  powerful  cannonading,  more  and  more  power- 
ful to  the  end,  on  the  fortress  of  the  reason,  the  conscience,  the 
will,  and  heart  of  those  unreconciled  to  God,  he  had,  in  my 
judgment,  no  equal  in  his  day  among  those  whom  I  have  had 
the  privilege  to  hear. 

We  have  seen  that  the  chief  part  of  Dr.  Taylor's  mature  life, 
thirty-six  years,  more  than  a  third  of  a  century,  he  spent  as  a 
teacher  of  theology.  In  that  period  nearly  seven  hundred  young 
men  received  his  instructions,  who  have  gone  into  all  parts  of 
our  own  country  and  the  great  missionary  field  of  the  world. 
A  chief  part  therefore  of  any  just  estimate  of  his  character  and 
usefulness  must  consist  in  a  right  view  of  his  character  as  a 
theologian  and  theological  teacher. 

One  of  his  prominent  characteristics,  as  a  teacher,  was  his 
great  confidence  in  the  truth — in  its  reality  and  in  its  power. 
He  regarded  it  as  the  instrument  of  divine  wisdom,  perfectly  .. 
fitted  for  its  avowed  purpose  of  enlightening,  convincing  and 
correcting  the  understanding,  and  of  moving  and  converting  the 
heart ;  though  he  deeply  felt,  and  always  taught,  that,  owing  to 
human  sinfulness,  perversity  and  obstinacy,  it  never  has  this 
effect  unless  attended  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  He  had  confidence 
in  the  power  of  all  truth,  but  especially  of  the  truth  of  God's 
word.  He  never  allowed  Christianity,  so  far  as  committed  to 
him,  to  acknowledge  any  weakness,  or  to  go  begging  in  any  re- 
spect, before  the  tribunal  of  truth  and  reason  ;  but  he  always 


-trr 

17 

challenged  for  it  the  fullest  investigation  before  that  tribunal, 
confident  of  victory  in  proportion  to  the  fullness  of  the  investi- 
gation. 

This  confidence  in  the  truth,  and  in  the  capability  of  men 
under  the  divine  guidance  and  assistance  to  know  it  and  to  de- 
fend it,  he  imparted  to  his  pupils.  He  taught  them  to  be 
thorough  and  independent  thinkers — to  call  no  man  master,  and 
to  go  for  the  truth  themselves  "  to  the  law  and  to  the  testi- 
mony." This,  doubtless,  was  right  and  wise  ;  though  it  needed 
to  be  guarded  against  perversion — a  perversion  which  has  some- 
times been  seen,  especially  in  the  earlier  ministrations  of  some 
of  his  students,  in  inordinate  self-confidence,  and  a  too  liberal 
disregard  of  seniors  and  betters  and  good  authorities.  His 
method  of  instruction  was  one  of  the  utmost  freedom  and 
frankness.  He  never  dodged  difficulties,  nor  evaded  objections, 
but  invited  their  free  and  full  presentation  and  always  met 
them  kindly  and  fully.  His  mode  was,  after  finishing  his  lec- 
ture of  an  hour,  to  invite  questions,  saying,  "  Now  I'll  hear 
you."  And  often  for  two  hours  after  lecture  I  have  seen  him 
patiently  and  earnestly  discussing  the  objections  and  difficulties 
of  those  who  did  not  see  the  way  clear. 

Dr.  Taylor  aimed  to  make  his  students  able  to  preach  so  as 
to  bring  men  to  repentance,  faith  and  salvation.  This  was  his 
chief  aim.  His  theological  instructions  were  to  an  uncommon 
extent  clustered  about  the  doctrine  of  regeneration — its  nature, 
necessity,  mode  and  means.  This  was  natural.  For  when  he 
entered  on  his  professorship  he  came,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
preaching  in  revivals  of  religion,  and  at  a  time  when  obstacles 
of  a  doctrinal  and  speculative  kind  in  the  path  of  repentance 
were  far  more  prevalent  than  now.  On  the  one  hand  was  the 
plea  of  inability  to  repent  and  come  to  Christ,  thoroughly  be- 
lieved, with  some  a  natural  inability  or  want  of  natural  power, 
with  others  a  misnamed  moral  inability,  which  differed  from 
the  other  only  in  name — in  either  case  a  real  and  total  incom- 
petency  to  accept  the  offers  of  the  gospel,  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  which  men  felt  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait 
for  God  to  make  them  Christians,  or,  as  the  phrase  of  the  day 
was,  "  to  wait  God's  time."  Then  there  was  the  objection  that 
God  had  wholly  decided  the  case  for  them  by  an  eternal  and 
irresistible  decree  of  election  or  reprobation  ;  and  the  only  rea- 
sonable course  for  them  was  to  wait  for  its  execution,  in  the  use 
of  such  means  of  grace  as  reading  the  Bible,  prayer  and  attend- 
ance on  the  Sanctuary.  We  have  little  idea,  in  these  days,  of 
the  prevalence  and  strength  of  these  obstacles  as  long  ago  as 

3 


18 

the  earlier  part  of  this  century.  I  have  often  heard  my  father 
say  that  in  his  childhood  and  youth  he  was  educated  in  the  full 
conviction  that  he  could  do  nothing  effectually  to  become  a 
Christian  ;  and  earnestly  desiring  to  be  a  Christian,  and  having 
received  the  impression  that  in  the  millenium  all  could  become 
Christians  if  they  would,  he  used  anxiously  to  reckon  whether 
the  millenium  would,  come  in  his  lifetime  ;  for  should  he  live 
till  then,  he  could  accept  the  offers  of  the  gospel.  On  the  other 
hand  was  the  Hopkinsian  doctrine  that  it  was  sinful  to  use  the 
means  of  grace,  and  that  all  the  acts  of  the  unregenerate  man 
are  sinful — that  all  his  trying  to  repent,  by  prayer  or  otherwise, 
is  only  an  abomination  to  God.  These  objections  and  obstacles 
Dr.  Taylor  had  cleared  away  in  his  own  ministry  ;  and  he  felt 
the  importance  of  enabling  his  students  to  clear  them  away, 
and  to  teach  that  the  path  is  open  to  come  at  once  to  Christ  by 
repentance  and  faith  ;  that  what  God  commands  man  to  do, 
man  can  do  ;  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  graciously  bestowed, 
not  to  give  him  natural  power  to  do  it  (for  that  he  has  as  a  ra- 
tional and  accountable  being)  but  to  overcome  his  unwillingness 
or  disinclination  to  do  it.  And  this  cherished  purpose  he  ac- 
complished. His  students  did  learn  how  to  show  the  open  way 
to  Christ  and  to  press  men  to  immediate  repentance  ;  and  they 
were  very  successful,  especially  his  earlier  students,  in  converting 
souls  to  God.  No  doubt  his  influence,  by  his  preaching,  his 
publications,  and  through  those  whom  he  taught,  has  been,  in 
large  part,  the  cause  of  the  changed  condition  of  the  public 
mind  respecting  the  practicability  of  coming  at  once  to  Christ 
by  repentance  and  faith. 

Dr.  Taylor  greatly  excelled  in  what  may  be  called  the  ana- 
lytic way  of  teaching. 

He  had  been  a  close  student  of  the  human  mind,  especially 
in  the  light  of  the  Bible  and  actual  life  ;  and  he  had  a  pro- 
found, comprehensive  and  discriminating  knowledge  of  mental 
states  and  operations,  particularly  with  reference  to  morals  and 
religion.  Hence  he  was  able  accurately  to  analyze  the  acts  and 
conditions  of  the  mind  in  religion — to  take  a  mental  act  or  state 
to  pieces,  so  to  speak,  and  show  its  parts  and  processes,  and 
whole  nature,  and  how  to  do  it,  or  to  undo  it.  For  example, 
repentance  or  conversion  to  God — he  would  show  what  it  is^  and 
would  so  unfold  its  constituent  parts  and  processes  that  an  in- 
quirer would  know  what  was  to  be  done  by  him  in  becoming  a 
Christian,  and  how  to  do  it.  He  did  not  stop  with  the  direction, 
"  Repent  and  believe,"  which  to  most  persons  was  a  blind  di- 
rection ;  but  he  would  show  them  what  it  is  to  repent  and  be- 


19 

lieve,  and  the  way  to  do  it — how  to  take  the  first  step,  and  the 
second,  till,  by  God's  help,  it  was  done.  How  well  I  remember 
the  time  when  I  went  to  him,  asking  what  I  should  do  to  be 
saved  !  I  had  talked  with  others — they  had  moved  my  feel- 
ings and  increased  my  earnestness,  and  thus  were  of  service  ; 
but  they  did  not  tell  me  what  to  do,  so  that  I  could  understand 
it.  They  had  told  me  to  repent  and  believe  ;  but  they  might 
as  well  have  told  me  to  go  somewhere  they  did  not  know  where  : 
for  I  did  not  know  what  it  was  to  repent  and  believe,  or  how  to 
do  it.  He  saw  in  a  moment  my  difficulty.  In  his  calm,  kind 
and  earnest  way,  he  told  me  just  what  it  is  to  become  a  Christian. 
He  showed  me  the  way  to  Christ  by  repentance  and  faith,  step 
by  step,  so  that  it  was  plain  ;  and  I  felt  that  I  could  go  right 
to  my  room  and  fall  on  my  knees,  and  by  God's  help,  do  it.  I 
have  never  seen  the  man  who  had  anything  like  his  skill  in 
dealing  with  inquirers  for  the  way  of  life.  And  it  consisted 
chiefly  in  his  knowledge  of  the  states  and  operations  of  the 
human  mind,  and  in  his  analytic  way  of  presenting  it.  By  his 
preaching,  and  writing,  and  especially  through  those  whom  he 
has  taught,  he  has,  with  others  like  him,  been  instrumental  in 
making  the  way  to  Christ  and  salvation  far  more  plain  and 
practicable  than  it  used  to  be.  It  has  not  been  made  more  easy, 
in  the  sense  of  diminishing,  in  the  least,  conviction  of  sin,  or  of 
the  strength  and  stubbornness  of  the  human  heart  in  its  wick- 
edness and  aversion  to  God  ;  but  more  easy,  in  the  sense  of  being 
more  plain — in  other  words,  by  answering  more  fully  and  par- 
ticularly and  practicably  the  great  inquiry,  "  What  must  I  do 
to  be  saved." 

The  central  peculiarity  of  Dr.  Taylor's  theological  system  may 
be  described  thus.  He  so  represented  the  divine  side  and  the 
human  side  of  religion  as  to  make  them  harmonize — as  to  ren- 
der theology  consistent  with  itself  and  with  all  known  truth. 
While  he  admitted  that  in  so  profound  and  comprehensive  a 
subject  as  theology,  the  science  of  God  and  his  government,  there 
are  mysteries,  or  things  above  arid  beyond  our  understanding, 
he  abhorred  and  scouted  the  idea  that  there  are  in  theology 
contradictions  and  absurdities — things  which  we  see  and  know 
to  be  contradictory  or  absurd.  While  he  maintained  firmly  the 
doctrines  of  human  depravity,  or  sinfulness,  and  that  by  nature, 
of  God's  foreknowledge  and  foreordination  of  all  events,  of  his 
electing  grace,  of  the  sovereignty  of  his  Spirit,  and  of  the  perse- 
verance of  his  saints,  he  so  presented  them  as  that  they  did  not 
contradict  the  equally  true  and  scriptural  doctrines  of  human 
freedom,  and  just  accountability.  That  doctrine  of  human 


20 

freedom,  which  he  justly  defined,  not  merely  and  only  as  liberty 
to  do  as  we  will,  but  also  as  liberty  to  will,  power  to  will  either 
way,  he  illustrated,  and  fortified,  and  defended,  and  carried 
through  all  parts  of  his  system  of  morals  and  theology.*  The 
result  was  the  removal  of  many  difficulties  in  theological  science, 
and  greater  freedom  and  power  in  manifesting  the  truth  to  the 
consciences  and  hearts  of  men. 

This  feature  of  his  theological  system  at  one  time  was  re- 
garded with  alarm,  very  much  through  misunderstanding,  and 
he  was  called  Arminian  and  Semi-Arminian.  But  time  has 
fully  proved  that  his  mode  was  altogether  the  best  for  the  refu- 
tation of  Arminianism  ;  while  it  has  done  much  to  bring  some 
who  are  called  Arminian,  some  among  the  Methodists  for  exam- 
ple, to  a  substantial  reception  of  many  of  the  doctrines  which 
they  had  rejected ;  and  thus  it  has  helped  on  the  harmony, 
which,  we  may  hope,  may  at  some  time  be  complete  between 
different  parts  of  the  one  flock  of  Christ. 

One  peculiarity  of  Dr.  Taylor's  system  of  theological  teach- 
ing, subordinate  to  the  general  one  already  mentioned,  yet  so 
important  as  to  deserve  special  notice,  was  his  solution  of  the 
difficult  problem  of  the  existence  of  sin,  under  the  government 
of  a  wise  and  benevolent  God.  The  common  solution  had  been 
that  God  chose  and  ordained  the  existence  of  sin,  when  he 
might  have  prevented  it  in  a  moral  universe,  because  it  was  the 
necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good — because  he  could  do  more 
good  with  sin  than  he  could  without  it.  This  solution  Dr. 
Taylor  rejected  with  all  his  heart,  as  dishonorable  to  God's 
truth  and  sincerity,  as  contrary  to  the  divine  law  and  to  all  ra- 
tional views  of  government,  of  the  nature  and  tendencies  of  sin 
and  of  holiness,  and  of  known  facts.  He  insisted  that  God,  so 
far  from  regarding  sin  as  that  without  which  the  highest  good 
could  not  be  done,  regards  it  as  good  for  nothing  anywhere,  as 
evil  and  only  evil  everywhere,  in  all  its  tendencies  and  relations  ; 
and  therefore  he  does  not  wish  it,  ever,  or  anywhere,  but  forbids 
it  everywhere,  and  laments  it  whenever  and  wherever  it  occurs. 
His  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  that  sin  comes  in,  as  a  neces- 
sary and  unavoidable  result  of  such  materials  as  God  uses  in  a 
moral  universe — to  wit,  free  agents — that  notwithstanding  all 
that  can  be  done,  short  of  breaking  down  the  freedom  he  has 
given,  and'  thus  contradicting  himself,  sin  will  come  in  some- 
where in  the  moral  realms.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the 

*  With  reference  to  the  statement,  "  They  can  if  they  will,"  he  used  to  say, 
in  his  terse  and  strong  way,  "  They  can  if  they  wont." 


21 


correctness  of  this  solution  of  a  difficult  question,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  gives  the  preachers  of  God's  word  freedom 
consistently  to  represent  sin  as,  everywhere  and  in  all  its  rela- 
tions, the  abominable  thing  which  God  hates  ;  which  freedom 
surely  they  can  not  have  under  the  solution  which  he  rejected. 

A  large  part  of  Dr.  Taylor's  power  as  a  preacher,  and  as  a 
teacher  of  theology,  consisted  in  his  profound,  comprehensive 
and  sublime  views  of  God  as  lawgiver  and  moral  governor  ; 
that  is,  governor  by  law  and  authority.  Out  of  these  grew  his 
impressive  views  of  law,  of  moral  obligation,  of  the  excellence 
of  obedience,  of  the  evil  and  guilt  of  sin,  of  the  penalty  of  the 
law,  and  of  the  atonement,  which  takes  the  place,  as  the  ex- 
pression of  God's  mind,  of  the  penalty,  in  the  case  of  the 
penitent  and  pardoned.  These  views  were  not  new  with  him, 
for  they  have  been  propounded  from  the  time  of  the  younger 
President  Edwards  ;  but  by  him  they  were  enlarged,  confirmed 
and  elucidated,  and  have  been  the  most  successful  of  the  means, 
by  which  those  errors  which  come  under  the  name  of  Unitarian- 
ism  have  been  withstood,  and  in  a  great  measure  subverted. 

As  Dr.  Taylor  never  published  any  of  those  profound  lectures, 
by  which  he  taught  ethics  and  theology,  it  is  impossible  for 
those  who  have  not  attended  his  lectures  adequately  to  appre- 
ciate him.  But  the  greater  part  of  those  who  have  had  this 
means  of  knowing  him,  and  are  also  familiar  with  the  New 
England  theologians,  beginning  with  the  elder  Edwards,  will 
estimate  him  as  the  ablest  of  them  all.  Such  certainly  is  my 
judgment ;  and  such  will  be,  I  doubt  not,  the  general  verdict, 
when  his  works  are  published. 

Having  said  this,  I  must  also  say,  in  the  spirit  of  fair  criti- 
cism, that  there  is  one  part  of  his  theological  system  which,  in 
my  view,  will  not  bear  the  test  of  time  and  of  light.  That  is 
the  self-love  theory,  or  desire  of  happiness  theory,  as  it  has  been 
called  ;  viz.  that  all  motives  that  come  to  the  mind  find  their 
ultimate  ground  of  appeal  in  the  desire  of  personal  happiness  ; 
and  that  the  idea  of  right  in  its  last  analysis  is  resolved  into  a 
tendency  to  the  highest  happiness.  This  theory,  though  advo- 
cated by  him,  was  not  peculiar  to  him,  and  never  should  be  at- 
tributed to  him  as  a  peculiarity.  It  was  plainly  taught  be- 
fore him,  by  Dwight  ,and  the  elder  Edwards  ;  though,  with  his 
accustomed  frankness  and  boldness,  he  gave  it,  perhaps,  greater 
prominence  than  they.  But  improvement  in  theology  is  not 
ended  :  in  theology  not  as  it  is  in  the  Bible — that  can  not  be 
improved — but  theology  as  it  exists  in  the  apprehension,  inter- 
pretation, and  exposition  of  men.  And  one  of  the  improve- 


22  y 

ments,  I  confidently  trust,  will  be  the  general  acknowledgment 
that  the  idea  of  right  can  not  be  wholly  resolved  into  the  idea 
of  expediency  or  utility ;  and  that  the  idea  of  right  and  the 
sense  of  duty,  are  as  real,  and  as  ultimate  grounds  of  appeal  or 
motive  in  the  mind,  as  the  desire  of  happiness. 

The  greatest  mistake,  in  my  judgment,  which  Dr.  Taylor  has 
made  in  his  theological  life,  was  in  spending  so  much  of  his 
precious  time  as  he  did,  when  so  often  attacked,  in  proving  him- 
self orthodox  according  to  human  standards.  Whether  one  is 
orthodox  according  to  the  Bible,  God's  standard,  is  a  worthy 
question ;  whether  one  is  orthodox  according  to  varying  and 
imperfect  human  standards,  is  a  very  inferior  if  not  wholly 
worthless  question.  The  time  thus  spent  by  him,  though  he 
was  completely  successful,  would  have  been  far  better  employed 
in  elaborating,  and  elucidating,  and  fortifying  by  the  word  of 
God  and  right  reason,  his  own  views  of  truth,  and  letting  his 
reputation  for  orthodoxy  take  care  of  itself ;  or  rather  in  letting 
God  take  care  of  it,  whom  he  was  endeavoring  to  glorify. 

Still  the  mistake  was  natural  and  almost  unavoidable  :  for  he 
and  many  others  thought  that  the  usefulness  and  even  the  ex- 
istence of  the  theological  institution,  in  which  he  was  a  teacher, 
would  be  sacrificed  by  the  numerous  assaults  made  upon  his 
theological  reputation,  unless  he  defended  himself,  and  main- 
tained his  orthodoxy  according  to  the  standards  of  New  Eng- 
land theology. 

But  it  is  time  to  close.  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  our  be- 
loved and  admired  friend's  intellectual  vigor  did  not  fail  before 
he  was  withdrawn  from  his  active  sphere.  Even  after  he  was 
confined  to  his  house  and  his  bed,  his  mind  would  fire  up  into 
a  sacred  fervor  and  eloquence,  when  he  dwelt,  as  he  often  did, 
on  his  sublime  views  of  God  and  Christ,  of  the  law  and  the  gos- 
pel. Such  views  made  him  regard  as  trifling  the  financial  losses 
which  have  occupied  so  much  of  the  public  attention  during 
recent  months.  In  one  of  the  last  walks  which  he  took  in  his 
feebleness,  he  met  an  old  and  familiar  friend,  who  referred  to 
those  losses.  "And  what  are  they  ?"  said  he,  with  rising  voice 
and  kindling  eye.  "  Should  we  not,  like  Paul,  count  all  these 
things  as  dross  that  we  may  win  Christ  ?  What  though  the 
whole  world  should  fail  ?  It  will  work  out  for  those  who  love 
Christ  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory."  And 
thus  he  pursued  the  theme  till  he  arrived  at  his  house. 

He  felt  to  the  last  an  unabated  and  even  an  increased  interest 
in  those  views  of  divine  things,  which  he  had  endeavored  to 


23 

present  in  his  teaching  ;  and  said  that  he  did  not  know  how  to 
die,  there  was  so  much  more  which  he  thought  he  could  do  here. 
When  he  became  unable  to  read  his  lectures  himself,  and  even 
during  the  two  and  a  half  weeks  of  his  confinement  to  his  bed, 
he  used  to  request  his  daughter  to  read  to  him  this  and  that 
one  which  he  would  indicate.  Of  one  of  them,  the  last  which 
he  wrote,  written  not  more  than  two  months  before  his  death, 
his  wife  said  to  him  :  "  How  I  wish  that  could  be  put  into  the 
form  of  a  sermon  and  that  you  could  preach  it !"  "  And  0,  how 
I  wish  it,"  said  he — "  0  that  I  could  be  permitted  to  preach 
again,  and  to  preach  to  ministers  !" 

His  gradual  decline  for  several  weeks  was  attended  by  his 
calm  and  trustful  confidence  in  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ  and 
in  the  ministration  of  the  Spirit,  which  he  had  spent  his  life  in 
setting  forth  to  his  fellow-men.  He  said,  "  I  wish  to  go,  saying, 
as  the  martyr  Stephen  did  :  '  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit/ " 
After  his  mind  through  bodily  weakness  began  to  wander,  his 
thoughts  were  upon  divine  truths  and  heavenly  glories,  and  in  a 
half  unconscious  way  he  frequently  repeated  the  stanza, 

"  See  Salem's  golden  spires 

In  beauteous  prospect  rise ! 
And  brighter  crowns  than  angels  wear, 

Which  sparkle  through  the  skies  !" 

A  few  days  before  he  died,  and  while  he  was  in  full  possession 
of  his  mind,  he  called  to  his  bedside  his  wife,0  (between  whom 
and  himself,  as  all  the  friends  of  the  family  know,  there  existed 
the  most  devoted,  simple  and  beautiful  affection)  and,  taking 
her  hand,  he  said  very  earnestly,  and  in  that  plain  Saxon  style, 
which  he  was  so  accustomed  to  use  :  "  I  shall  not  be  with  you 
long  ;  and  when  I  am  called  to  go,  I  want  you  to  be  very  calm 
and  very  quiet,  and  to  let  me  go  ;  and  the  widow's  God  will  be 
your  God."  He  had  a  strong  aversion  to  an  exciting  death-bed 
scene. 

Calm  and  quiet  was  the  scene  of  his  death,  even  beyond  his 
wish.  He  passed  away  so  quietly  that  it  was  not  known  when 


*  He  was  married  Oct.  15,  1810,  to  Rebecca  Maria  Hine,  of  his  native  town, 
New  Milford,  Conn.  She  was  of  his  kindred,  the  daughter  of  his  cousin.  Her 
maternal  grandfather  and  his  mother  were  brother  and  sister,  of  the  name  of 
Northrop.  Passing  their  childhood  together,  they  were  early  joined  in  devoted 
affection.  Referring  to  this  early  attachment,  Dr.  Taylor  once  said  to  a  friend 
that  they  never  were  engaged,  for  there  was  never  any  need  of  it. 


24 

he  died.  His  attendants,  not  long  after  midnight,  had  helped 
him  to  an  easy  position,  and  took  their  seats,  leaving  him  appa- 
rently asleep.  One  of  them  made  the  remark  that  he  was 
sleeping  more  quietly  than  usual,  and  after  some  time  had 
elapsed,  saying  that  he  had  slept  longer  than  usual,  he  went  to 
him,  and  found  that  he  was  dead.  So  the  poet's  phrase  was 
literally  true  respecting  him, 

"  They  thought  him  sleeping  when  he  died." 

He  is  dead  ;  and  the  places  which  have  known  him  here  will 
know  him  no  more  forever.  But  though  dead,  like  righteous 
Abel,  HE  YET  SPEAKETH. 

Oh,  that  we,  my  Christian  friends,  may  regard  his  words,  as 
they  sound  down  to  us  from  the  past,  exhorting  us  to  be  earnest 
in  prayer  and  labor  for  the  salvation  of  men.  And,  0,  that 
you,  who  are  out  of  Christ,  would  regard  his  words — those  di- 
vine words,  from  which  he  used  to  speak  with  so  much  eloquence 
and  power.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish 
but  have  eternal  life."  "  God  is  angry  with  the  wicked  every 
day."  "  Have  I  any  pleasure  at  all  that  the  wicked  should  die  ? 
turn  ye,  turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye  die  !"  "  Make  you  a  new 
heart  and  a  new  spirit."  "  Is  he  not  thy  father  that  hath 
bought  thee,  hath  he  not  made  thee  and  established  thee  ?" 
"  Quench  not  the  Spirit."  "  Now  is  the  accepted  time,  and  now 
is  the  day  of  salvation."  Through  his  words  let  memory  preach 
to  you,  and  preach  not  in  vain. 


A    SERMON 

PREACHED  IN  THE  CHAPEL  OF  YALE  COLLEGE,  MARCH  14, 1858, 

THE  FIRST  SUNDAY  AFTER  THE  DEATH  OF 

EEV.  NATHANIEL  W.  TAYLOR,  D.  D., 

D wight  Professor  of  Didactic  Theology. 

BY  GEORGE  P.  FISHER, 
Livingston  Professor  of  Divinity. 


DANIEL  XII.   3.    AND  THEY  THAT  BE  WISE  SHALL  SHINE  AS  THE  BRIGHTNESS 

OF   THE    FIRMAMENT  ;     AND    THEY   THAT    TURN   MANY    TO    RIGHTEOUSNESS,    AS    THK 
STARS  FOREVER  AND  EVER. 

WHAT  glorious  promises  are  held  out,  in  the  Bible,  to  those 
who  spend  their  lives  in  bringing  sinners  to  God  !  They  are 
pronounced  blessed  even  in  their  persecutions.  Having  a  part 
in  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  they  go  to  reign  with  Him  on  high. 
They  are  forever  lifted  above  the  troubles  of  this  dying  exis- 
tence, as  the  firmament  is  exalted  above  the  earth.  In  the 
sphere  to  which  they  are  removed,  they  are  like  the  stars  set  in 
the  tranquil  sky.  No  man  can  pluck  them  down  out  of  the 
hand  of  the  Father.  They  are  together  there  in  heaven,  shining 
on  one  another,  with  a  mingled  radiance,  reflected  from  "  the 
Lamb  who  is  the  light  thereof."  They  do  not  die  and  pass 
away  like  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  but  they  resemble  the 
stars  which  have  held  their  course  undimmed,  from  the  morning 
of  creation  until  now.  Their  life  is  everlasting — an  everlasting 
progress  in  knowledge,  and  purity,  and  blessedness.  Yea,  when 
the  stars  shall  fall,  and  the  heaven  depart  as  a  scroll,  the  Apos- 
tles of  God  will  continue,  near  their  Redeemer  forever  and  ever  ! 

We  cherish  the  hope  that  the  venerated  father  whose  body 
we  have  lately  committed  to  the  grave,  was  a  true  minister  of 
Christ ;  and  that  Christ  was  with  him,  according  to  the  promise, 
unto  the  end,  and  that  now  he  is  with  Christ  in  the  mansions 
prepared  for  His  followers.  We  honor  the  Creator  when  we 
recognize  any  real  excellence  to  be  found  in  his  creature.  We 
honor  the  Saviour  when  we  admire  the  fruit  of  his  grace,  and 

4 


26 

contemplate  the  work  of  those  whom  he  has  led  by  the  hand. 
Only  let  us  keep  in  mind  the  words  of  John  the  Baptist,  him- 
self "  a  burning  and  shining  light :"  "A  man  can  receive  noth- 
ing except  it  be  given  him  from  heaven." 

Grant  me  your  attention,  while  I  attempt  to  delineate  the 
virtues  of  the  deceased,  and  interweave  the  leading  circum- 
stances of  his  life  and  death. 

Nathaniel  William  Taylor  was  born  in  the  town  of  New  Mil- 
ford,  Connecticut,  on  the  23d  of  June,  1786.  His  ancestors 
were  from  England.  His  grandfather,  for  whom  he  was  named, 
was  the  pastor  of  the  town  upwards  of  fifty  years,  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Corporation  of  this  College  about  half  that  period — 
from  1774  until  his  death.  He  was  a  vigorous  preacher,  a  wise 
and  affectionate  counsellor,  and  an  ardent  friend  of  liberty. 
During  a  part  of  the  old  French  war,  he  was  chaplain  of  a 
regiment  of  Connecticut  troops  ;  and  his  farewell  sermon  to  the 
soldiers,  preached  at  Crown  Point,  is  an  evidence  both  of  his 
patriotic  zeal,  and  his  Christian  fidelity.  His  family  were  pos- 
sessed of  wealth.  Two  of  his  sons  were  graduates  of  the  Col- 
lege ;  but  the  father  of  our  departed  friend  was  a  farmer,  and  a 
highly  respected  citizen  in  his  native  town.  There  Dr.  Taylor 
spent  his  early  years.  As  a  boy  he  was  remarkable  for  his 
strength  of  body,  and  the  activity  of  his  mind.  In  every  school 
to  which  he  was  sent,  as  his  contemporaries  remember,  he  was 
seen  at  the  head  of  his  class.  An  excellent  mother  made  him, 
her  youngest  son,  the  object  of  a  love  peculiarly  tender  and 
watchful.  Time  never  wore  away  her  image  from  his  grateful 
heart.  For  out-of-door  sports,  like  hunting  and  fishing,  he  ac- 
quired a  hearty  relish,  which  he  long  retained.  His  especial 
fondness  for  domestic  animals  grew  up  in  boyhood.  He  always 
took  delight  in  his  garden ;  and  his  uncommon  skill  in  horse- 
manship, so  well  known  to  all  his  friends,  gave  him  diversion  in 
the  midst  of  arduous  studies.  These  characteristics  may  also 
be  traced  back  to  his  early  life. 

He  prepared  for  college  under  the  tuition  of  Dr.  Azel  Backus, 
afterwards  President  of  Hamilton  College,  who  had  established 
a  select  school  for  boys  in  his  parish  at  Bethlehem.  He  was  a 
man  of  original  and  decided  character,  with  much  intellectual 
force  and  depth  of  feeling.  He  became  strongly  attached  to 
his  young  pupil ;  and  I  have  heard  Dr.  Taylor  describe  a  meet- 
ing which  he  had,  soon  after  he  had  begun  to  preach,  with  his 
old  instructor,  when  Dr.  Backus,  placing  his  hand  on  the 
shoulder  of  his  youthful  friend,  expressed  in  a  very  simple  and 
touching  manner — the  tears  flowing  down  his  cheeks — the  joy 


2*7 

he  felt  at  the  report  of  his  success.  Dr.  Taylor  entered  college 
in  1800,  when  he  was  only  fourteen  years  of  age  ;  but  he  was 
soon  attacked  with  an  affection  of  the  eyes,  which  compelled 
him  to  leave.  He  came  back  and  joined  the  next  class,  but  he 
was  again  obliged  to  lay  aside  study,  for  the  same  cause.  Once 
more  he  returned,  in  the  autumn  of  1805,  so  far  recovered  as  to 
be  able  to  finish  the  course,  and  graduate  in  1807.  But  his  re- 
peated disappointments,  involving  the  loss  of  three  years,  had, 
for  the  time,  chilled  his  aspirations,  and  he  resumed  his  studies 
in  the  third  instance  rather  to  gratify  his  parents,  than  with  any 
hope,  or  intention,  of  becoming  a  scholar.  He  said,  himself, 
concerning  this  period  :  "  Though  I  had  previously  felt  an  in- 
tense interest  in  study,  I  had,  by  that  time,  entirely  lost  it. 
Occasionally,  however,  my  emulation  was  stirred  ;  but  it  was 
to  little  purpose,  as  I  had  abandoned  the  thought  of  either 
doing  or  being  much  in  future  life."  But  this  apathy  was 
foreign  to  his  nature,  and  could  not  long  continue.  It  was  in 
consequence  of  the  encouragement  which  he  received  from  Dr. 
D  wight,  that  he  was  aroused  and  inspired  with  fresh  zeal  for 
intellectual  exertion.  In  his  Senior  year,  he  read  in  the  presence 
of  the  class,  and  before  the  President,  an  essay  on  "  The  Foun- 
dation of  Virtue."  His  classmates  who  had  preceded  him,  had 
failed  to  apprehend  the  point  of  the  theme  ;  and  the  President 
had  observed  as  each  of  them  finished,  that  they  did  not  un- 
derstand the  question,  but  after  Taylor  had  read,  the  President 
remarked  with  great  emphasis  :  "  That  is  right," — and  added 
warm  words  of  commendation,  which  made  his  young  heart  beat 
quick.  His  despondency  was  over  ;  and  to  this  event  he  attri- 
buted not  only  his  revived  enthusiasm,  but  also  the  direction 
which  his  studies  afterwards  took.  The  circumstance  proves 
how  much  a  few  words  of  a  teacher  may  effect,  if  spoken  at  the 
right  moment.  It  was  during  his  Junior  year  that  he  became 
interested  in  religion.  His  mind  was  profoundly  agitated,  and 
so  painful  were  his  convictions  of  sin,  that  Dr.  Dwight  feared 
that  his  reason  would  be  deranged.  He  obtained,  however,  a 
faint  hope  in  the  mercy  of  God,  which  was  kindled,  as  he  once 
told  me,  by  the  affecting  manner  in  which  the  President  in  one 
of  his  prayers  in  the  chapel,  quoted  the  passage  :  "  A  bruised 
reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  the  smoking  flax  shall  he  not 
quench."  But  not  until  several  years  afterwards,  when  he  had 
come  to  enjoy  a  more  intimate  intercourse  with  his  revered 
guide,  did  he  obtain  a  confirmed  hope  of  everlasting  life.  His 
experimental  knowledge  of  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  oi  the  awful 
condition  of  an  unpardoned  soul,  gave  rise  to  his  solemnity  in 


28 

expounding  the  moral  government  of  God,  and  to  the  uncom- 
promising earnestness  with  which  he  insisted  on  the  doctrine  of 
retribution.  It  was  the  testimony  of  his  conscience  given  dur- 
ing his  own  personal  struggle  for  salvation,  that  gave  vitality 
to  the  deductions  of  his  logic,  and  moved  him  towards  them. 
The  great  source  of  religious  influence  over  others,  the  source 
even  of  the  best  activity  of  a  man's  own  intellect,  is  in  the 
moral  trials,  and  victories,  through  which  he  has  gone  himself. 
During  the  next  year  after  his  graduation,  Dr.  Taylor  was 
the  private  tutor  of  a  son  of  Mr.  Van  Kensselaer  of  Albany,  and 
spent  several  months  in  the  city  of  Montreal,  where  he  learned 
the  French  language.  He  then  became  a  student  of  theology 
with  Dr.  Dwight,  entering  his  family,  becoming  his  amanuensis, 
and  writing  down,  at  the  dictation  of  his  teacher,  most  of  the 
sermons  which  compose  his  Theological  System.  For  this  friend 
of  his  youth,  his  spiritual  father,  Dr.  Taylor  ever  cherished  a  re- 
verence such  as  he  felt  for  no  other  man.  May  we  not  hope  that 
both  are  now  permitted  to  sit  together  at  the  feet  of  the  Great 
Teacher  !  He  obtained  his  license  to  preach  in  1810,  and  en- 
tered on  his  work  with  the  utmost  ardor.  Being  called,  soon 
after,  to  preach  in  his  native  town,  with  many  young  men  among 
his  hearers  who  had  been  his  associates  from  childhood,  he  de- 
livered a  discourse  from  the  text  in  John's  Gospel :  "  If  I  say 
the  truth,  why  do  ye  not  believe  me  ?"  This  passage  is  one  on 
which,  in  after  life,  he  was  accustomed  to  dwell ;  one  which 
he  frequently  repeated  with  peculiar  emphasis.  It  is  suggestive 
of  the  spirit  with  which  he  ever  investigated  the  Gospel,  and 
strove  to  bring  his  fellow-men  to  the  same  convictions  with  him- 
self. It  is  Coleridge,  I  think,  who  observes,  that  a  man  who 
begins  by  loving  Christianity  more  than  truth,  will  love  his  sect 
more  than  Christianity,  and  be  apt  to  end  by  loving  himself 
better  than  either.  Dr.  Taylor  was  not  of  this  class.  He  first 
loved  the  truth,  and  was  a  Christian,  because  he  was  thoroughly 
and  conscientiously  convinced  that  Christianity  is  true.  There 
was  something  adventurous,  almost  chivalrous,  in  the  tone  in 
which  he  often  avowed  his  readiness  to  go  wherever  the  truth 
would  lead  him.  All  of  his  pupils  will  recollect  certain  sayings 
of  his  to  this  efiect,  and  the  gesture  and  the  flash  of  the  eye, 
which  accompanied  them.  He  had  no  faith  fof  which  he  was 
not  ready  to  give  a  reason.  He  addressed  the  understanding  on 
all  occasions,  though  his  highest  desire  and  ultimate  purpose 
were  to  affect  the  feelings  and  change  the  will.  Every  ser- 
mon that  he  preached  was  an  attempt  to  inculcate  important 
truth,  which  he  took  care  to  establish  by  argument  and  evidence: 


He  deemed  nothing  gained,  however  his  hear'ers  might  be  in* 
terested,  until  their  judgment  was  satisfied.  He  was  unwilling 
to  have  them  assent  to  what  he  said,  unless  they  saw  what  they 
were  agreeing  to.  Persons  who  came  to  him  for  spiritual  coun- 
sel never  failed  to  receive  an  intelligible,  rational  answer  to  their 
inquiries ;  a  clear  solution  of  their  difficulties  ;  and  hundreds 
whom  he  has  guided  in  this  way,  into  the  Saviour's  kingdom, 
have  thankfully  testified  to  the  lucid  manner  in  which  he  ex- 
plained to  them  what  they  had  to  do  to  be  saved.  He  showed 
them  the  obstacles  in  their  way,  and  they  left  him,  in  no 
doubt  how  to  remove  them.  One  of  his  most  effective  sermons 
was  on  the  text  "  What  is  truth  ?"  and  none  who  have  ever 
listened  to  it  can  forget  how  impressively  the  simple  thought  is 
presented,  at  the  end,  that  the  truth, — the  great  doctrines  of 
religion, — is  unaltered  by  the  opinions  of  men,  by  their  belief, 
or  disbelief,  but  is  everlasting, — a  savor  of  life  unto  life,  or  of 
death  unto  death.  Dr.  Taylor  had  an  enthusiastic  confidence 
in  the  power  of  the  truth,  when  fairly  and  earnestly  proclaimed, 
to  vanquish  error.  He  despaired  of  no  unbeliever  who  could  be 
brought  to  lend  a  patient  ear  to  reasoning.  Many  times  I  have 
heard  him  say  that,  were  he  a  young  man,  he  should  be  strongly 
inclined  to  go  to  Paris,  and  associate  himself  with  students  and 
educated  men  there,  for  the  purpose  of  proving  to  them  the 
claims  of  the  Gospel.  When  fully  possessed  of  a  truth,  he 
held  it  with  an  iron  grasp,  and  it  seemed  to  him  a  weapon 
"mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down  of  strong  holds."  It 
was  not  in  a  vaunting  spirit,  but  from  a  glowing  faith  in  the 
efficiency  of  the  truth,  and  a  knowledge  that  the  truth  must 
win  the  day,  that  once,  when  he  was  a  young  man,  he  said  in  a 
familiar  conversation,  in  reference  to  preaching,  '  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  could  turn  the  world  round.'  Let  it  not  be  thought 
that  his  high  esteem  of  the  truth  crowded  out  the  sense  of  de- 
pendence on  God.  On  the  contrary,  his  hope  in  the  truth  was 
founded  on  his  habitual  feeling  that  the  Providence  of  God  is 
ever  working  in  favor  of  it,  and  that  His  gracious  Spirit  is  sel- 
dom denied  when  good  men  are  faithful.  He  shrunk  with  diffi- 
dence from  any  station  that  involved  much  responsibility,  and 
consented  to  take  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  first  church  in  New 
Haven,  as  the  successor  of  Stuart,  only  in  consequence  of  the 
almost  imperative  advice  of  Dr.  Dwight. 

He  was  ordained  in  April,  1812.  His  sermons  were  Avritten  in 
terse,  idiomatic  English,  and*  in  so  plain  a  style  as  to  be  level  to  the 
mind  of  the  humblest  auditor.  His  published  writings  are  not 
distinguished  for  perspicuity,  but  his  sermons  are,  Many  who 


30 

have  merely  been  acquainted  with  his  reputation  as  a  philoso- 
pher, have  imagined  that  his  discourses  to  the  people  were  ab- 
truse  dissertations,  or  bold  speculations  in  theology.  So  far 
from  this,  they  were  made  up  of  great,  simple  thoughts,  clothed 
in  a  garb  so  perfect  that  it  was  not  noticed,  and  enlivened  by 
striking  illustrations  from  the  Bible,  and  from  common  life. 
Like  some  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  and  his  recorded  discourses, 
the  sermons  of  Dr.  Taylor  were,  to  use  a  favorite  phrase  of  his 
own,  specimens  of  "fervid  argumentation/'  They  never  omitted 
a  close,  searching,  pressing  appeal  to  the  conscience.  When  he 
had  brought  his  truth  out  of  the  Scriptures,  and  set  it  in  such 
a  light  that  every  one  saw  it,  he  demanded,  in  the  name  of  God, 
the  assent  and  obedience  of  his  hearers.  He  insisted  on  an  in- 
stant compliance  with  every  known  obligation.  He  demon- 
strated the  fallacy,  and  folly,  of  the  excuses  of  impenitent  men 
for  living  without  God,  and  with  every  warning  and  every  pa- 
thetic entreaty,  urged  them  to  immediate  repentance.  Dr. 
Taylor  was  pre-eminently  a  solemn  preacher.  He  spoke  in  the 
manner  of  a  prophet.  His  person  was  beautiful,  yet  command- 
ing, and  the  deep  tones  of  his  voice  accorded  well  with  the  mo- 
mentous doctrines  which  he  was  commissioned  to  enforce.  As 
the  ambassador  of  God,  he  knew  no  fear  of  man.  Since  the 
days  of  President  Edwards,  no  one  has  preached  with  greater 
plainness  and  directness  of  application,  what  some  call  the  severe 
truths  of  religion, — like  the  justice  of  God  in  the  eternal  pun- 
ishment of  the  wicked.  Another  side  of  the  Gospel,  however, 
he  likewise  loved  to  present.  Among  his  most  useful  sermons 
were  some  of  a  different  character, — such  as  that  on  ''the  good- 
ness of  God  leading  to  repentance,"  and  that  on  the  text : 
"Whosoever  will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely."  The 
pungency  of  his  preaching  excited  discontent,  especially  at  first  j 
but  after  a  while,  some  who  had  been  loudest  in  their  complaints, 
came  to  him  trembling  inquirers  for  the  way  of  life,  of  whom, 
at  least  one,  became  a  noted  minister  of  the  Gospel.  The  labors 
of  Dr.  Taylor  in  the  pulpit  were  remarkably  blessed.  While  he 
was  pastor,  frequent  revivals  of  religion  occurred,  and  each  gen- 
eration of  the  young,  as  it  came  forward,  was  converted  and 
brought  into  the  church.  Out  of  the  pulpit,  in  intercourse  with 
his  people,  he  was  proportionally  zealous  and  successful.  He 
followed  them  into  their  houses  with  his  prayers,  and  affection- 
ate, serious  admonitions.  He  was  careful  to  make  himself  con* 
versant  with  the  religious  condition  of  the  members  of  his  parish, 
and  sought  out  opportunities  to  confer  with  them  on  the  great 
subject  of  salvation.  I  may  mention,  for  example,  that  he  once 


31 

persuaded  the  young  lawyers  in  town  to  meet  together,  and 
allow  him  to  talk  to  them  on  the  infinite  theme.  The  love  of 
his  people  for  him  knew  no  bounds  ;  and  as  the  generation  to 
which  he  had  ministered  passed  away,  their  children  and  child- 
ren's children  grew  up  in  the  same  reverent  attachment.  It 
may  remind  one  of  of  the  affection  of  the  church  at  Kiddermin- 
ster for  faithful  Richard  Baxter. 

But  Dr.  Taylor's  sympathies  were  not  absorbed  in  his  parish. 
In  the  other  Congregational  church  in  town,  his  influence  was 
scarcely  less  marked.  He  frequently  preached  in  other  places, 
his  aid  being  often  desired  in  revivals  of  religion.  Of  his  ser- 
vices as  a  counsellor  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  both  before  and 
after  he  resigned  the  pastoral  office  ;  of  his  agency  in  founding 
and  building  up  the  younger  churches  in  this  city,  and  in  the 
neighborhood  ;  of  the  zeal  and  effect  with  which  he  continued 
to  preach  until  he  was  disabled  by  bodily  infirmity  ;  and  of  the 
gratifying  results  by  which  his  labors  were  commonly  attended, 
I  have  not  time  to  speak.  In  the  revivals  of  religion  which 
have  occurred  in  college,  he  was  exceedingly  active  and  useful. 
During  the  revival  here  in  1831,  he  preached  to  the  students 
twice  every  week,  besides  holding  a  meeting  for  inquirers. 
There  is  a  large  number  of  ministers  among  our  graduates,  to- 
gether with  many  in  other  professions,  who  date  their  conversion 
from  interviews  with  him.  His  quick  discernment  of  the  mental 
condition  of  those  who  applied  to  him  for  guidance,  which  it  is 
often  so  hard  for  themselves  to  express,  was  only  equalled  by 
the  ready  wisdom,  and  the  paternal  kindness,  with  which  he 
pointed  out  the  path  of  duty,  the  narrow  way  which  leadeth 
unto  life.  Many  years  ago,  a  young  man  who  is  now  an  emi- 
nent Professor  in  one  of  our  theological  seminaries,  who  had 
long  suffered  under  religious  despondency,  happening  to  hear 
Dr.  Taylor  preach  in  Philadelphia,  though  a  stranger  to  him, 
ventured  to  seek  his  counsel,  and  was  at  once  relieved  by  his 
judicious  and  cheering  advice.  Within  a  few  days,  a  well- 
known  pastor  in  Massachusetts  has  detailed  to  me  how,  after 
being  in  darkness  for  months,  he  was  aided  in  a  similar  way  by 
this  departed  servant  of  Christ.  These  are  but  two  of  the  nu- 
merous examples  of  educated  men  whom  he  was  the  instrument 
of  turning  to  righteousness. 

Dr.  Taylor  entered  upon  his  Professorship  at  the  foundation 
of  the  theological  department,  in  1822.  At  that  time  lie  had 
come  prominently  before  the  public  as  a  preacher,  and  also  as  a 
theologian,  having  taken  part  in  the  Unitarian  controversy,  and 
contributed  able  articles  to  the  pages  of  the  Monthly  Christian 


32 

Spectator.  For  the  last  thirty  years,  he  has  been  chiefly  known, 
beyond  this  vicinity,  as  a  theological  writer  and  instructor. 
Contrary  to  what  is,  perhaps,  the  general  impression,  he  was,  in 
the  earlier  period  of  his  life,  an  industrious  reader.  He  posses- 
sed himself  of  the  most  important  and  useful  books  in  theology, 
which  were  then  to  be  obtained,  and  he  studied  them  thoroughly. 
In  the  solid,  doctrinal  writers  of  the  period  that  followed  the 
Reformation, — I  refer  now  to  the  English  writers, — he  was  well 
read.  Probably  none  of  his  contemporaries  was  so  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  great  divines  of  the  New  England  school  of 
theology,  beginning  with  the  elder  Edwards.  The  principal 
works  of  President  Edwards,  Dr.  Taylor  knew  almost  by  heart ; 
and  in  controversy,  he  sometimes  perplexed  an  opponent,  by 
unexpected  citations  from  this  New  England  father,  whose  au- 
thority has  been  so  high  among  us.  Such  authors  as  Calvin, 
Owen,  and  Turretin,  he  had  studied  ;  and,  what  is  more,  he  had 
mastered,  and  could  instantly  refer  to  the  passages  which  he 
might  require  in  an  argument.  On  the  subjects  of  metaphysical 
theology  in  which  he  was  most  interested,  he  read  the  English 
controversial  writers  on  both  sides,  and,  in  some  instances,  pro- 
vided himself  with  rarfe  works,  which  it  was  not  easy  to  procure. 
A  year  or  two  after  his  ordination,  he  seriously  considered  the 
question,  whether  he  would  not  give  up  his  parish,  and  go  to 
Andover,  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  what  he  deemed  to  be 
deficiencies  in  his  culture.  Not  long  before  his  death,  he  re- 
marked to  me,  that  '  he  wished  he  were  a  young  man  ;  then  he 
would  learn  the  Hebrew  and  the  German/  He  did  not  profess 
to  be  a  critical  interpreter  of  the  Scriptures ;  but  he  availed 
himself  of  such  helps  as  were  within  his  reach,  and  brought  to 
the  sacred  text  his  vigorous  common  sense. 

Dr.  Taylor  is  supposed  by  many  who  did  not  know  him  well, 
to  have  been  moved  to  his  studies  by  the  love  of  recondite  specu- 
lation. This  is  an  error.  His  motives,  from  the  outset,  were 
intensely  practical.  His  inquiries  relative  to  human  responsi- 
bility, and  the  character  and  ways  of  God,  were  prompted  by 
difficulties  in  his  own  religious  experience,  which  he  felt  obliged 
to  solve,  under  the  alternative  of  giving  up  his  faith.  From  a 
necessity  of  his  own  heart,  his  studies  took  their  rise.  He  was 
driven,  moreover,  to  seek  for  answers  to  current  objections  brought 
against  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  for  the  purpose  of  disarming 
opposers.  He  desired  a  Christianity  that  could  be  preached 
with  a  fearless  tongue.  He  wanted  to  go  before  his  impenitent 
hearers,  conscious  of  his  ability  to  beat  down  every  refuge  which 
gave  them  shelter  from  the  arrows  of  conscience.  In  philoso- 


33 

phy,  he  set  no  value  on  what  could  not  be  translated  into  lan- 
guage intelligible  to  plain  men,  and  would  not  bear  the  test  of 
common  sense.  He  was  constantly  appealing  to  the  common, 
unperverted  judgment  of  mankind,  as  revealing  the  facts  of  con- 
sciousness. Severely  rational,  he  was  impatient  of  whatever 
bordered  on  mysticism,  and  paid  little  respect  to  any  thought 
that  could  not  be  cast  into  a  lucid  proposition. 

It  is  not  for  me,  on  this  occasion,  to  criticise  the  principles  of 
his  Theological  System.  This  I  will  say, — that  he  held  with  his 
whole  heart,  and  taught  from  the  pulpit,  and  from  his  chair  in 
the  seminary,  the  fundamental  articles  of  the  evangelical  faith, 
which  gave  life  to  the  Protestant  Reformation,  and  form  the 
substantial  contents  of  the  Gospel.  A  symmetrical  system, 
compact  and  complete,  ascending  from  the  first  axiom  of  mental 
science  to  the  topmost  doctrines  of  Revelation,  he  constructed. 
Its  main  outlines  were  sketched  by  him  when  a  young  man.  I 
have  seen  an  Essay,  which  will  be  found  among  his  papers,  writ- 
ten not  long  after  he  began  his  ministry,  wherein  the  leading 
peculiarities  of  his  theology,  as  it  was  developed  later,  are  dis- 
tinctly stated  and  defended.  He  is  the  author  of  a  Theodicy — 
a  justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  men.  The  agency  of  God 
in  the  existence  of  sin  and  holiness, — the  relation  of  the  Decrees 
and  Providence  of  God  to  human  responsibility, — the  grand 
question  which  the  New  England  divines  have  debated  for  a 
hundred  years,  was  the  theme  of  his  discussions.  Whatever 
difference  of  opinion  may  exist  in  respect  to  his  conclusions,  per- 
taining, as  they  do,  to  the  most  profound  and  mysterious  prob- 
lems which  have  ever  engaged  the  human  mind  ;  however  critics 
may  dissent  from  his  views,  extending,  as  they  do,  over  so  vast 
a  range  of  topics,  candid  men  will  admire  his  ability,  and  appre- 
ciate the  integrity,  and  devotedness  of  his  character. 

Dr.  Taylor  combined  two  powers,  seldom  found  together, — 
the  powers  of  a  metaphysician,  and  of  an  orator.  His  faculty 
of  long-continued  abstraction  was  wonderful ;  and  the  subtlety 
of  his  analysis  strained  the  attention  of  the  most  acute  of  his 
pupils.  His  powerful  mind  found  its  recreation  in  those  forms 
of  activity,  which  to  common  men,  are  a  most  irksome  task. 
In  the  department  of  intellectual  science,  he  stands,  by  general 
consent,  in  the  first  rank.  Yet,  mixed  with  the  accurate,  reflec- 
tive, keenly  discriminating  habit  of  his  mind,  and  glowing  be- 
neath it,  was  the  fire  of  an  orator.  He  loved  to  convince  others, 
and  to  carry  them  witli  him.  In  the  presence  of  an  assembly, 
even  with  but  a  few  congenial  listeners,  his  mind  would  kindle, 
and  his  manner  become  eloquent.  Among  his  most  stirring,  as 

5 


34 

well  as  instructive  efforts,  were  the  extemporaneous  decisions 
which  he  was  formerly  accustomed  to  pronounce  in  the  students' 
debating  society,  over  which  he  presided.  Indeed,  his  mind 
seemed  always  to  be  in  lively  motion ;  and  it  was  his  complaint 
through  his  whole  life,  that  he  could  get  but  little  sleep.  When 
the  night  came,  his  brain  refused  to  cease  from  its  work. 

If  you  look  for  the  secret  of  the  uncommon  influence  which 
he  exerted  over  his  students,  you  may  find  it,  in  part,  in  the 
personal  traits  which  have  been  already  named.  They  were 
struck,  on  their  first  acquaintance  with  him,  with  the  superiori- 
ty of  his  intellect.  There  was  a  fascination  in  the  manifest  in- 
dependence of  his  character.  It  was  evident  that  he  called  no 
man  master.  He  taught  them  to  throw  away  the  authority  of 
names,  and  to  think  for  themselves.  He  stimulated  them  by 
putting  his  propositions  in  paradoxical  and  startling  forms.  He 
gave  them  to  understand  that  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  ex- 
positions of  theology  in  the  current  treatises  ;  and  that  he  lec- 
tured, because  he  had  things  to  say  which  had  not  been  said 
before.  He  challenged  them  to  examine  all  his  teachings  in  the 
light  of  their  own  intelligence,  to  bring  forward  all  the  objec- 
tions which  they  could  think  of,  urging  them  to  propose  ques- 
tions, and  ending  every  lecture  with  the  words  :  "Now  I  will 
hear  you."  He  made  it  clear  that  he  was  not  discharging  a 
mechanical  function, — that  he  was  not  fettered  by  false  notions 
of  professional  dignity,  but  that  he  was  intent  on  his  great  ob- 
ject, and  was  ready  to  trample  on  any  mere  forms  that  might 
stand  in  his  way.  The  courage  of  Dr.  Taylor  fascinated  young 
men.  For  he  was  eminently  courageous.  He  had  never  learned 
the  trick  of  concealing  his  opinions.  In  controversy,  he  would 
know  nothing  of  stratagem,  but  marched  boldly  up  in  the  face 
of  his  antagonist.  To  the  inuendoes  of  sly  opponents,  he  re- 
plied with  heavy  blows.  Conscious  that  his  position  was,  in 
some  respects,  peculiar,  his  resolution  to  maintain  it,  and  his 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  do  so,  against  all  adversaries,  never 
wavered^for  a  moment.  It  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  en- 
tire spirit  of  the  man,  when,  in  reference  to  a  contingency  that 
might  require  an  armed  defence  of  rights,  he  declared  to  a  con- 
course of  his  fellow-citizens,  that,  old  man  as  he  was,  he  would 
be  ready  to  shoulder  his  musket.  When  the  Universalists  came 
into  his  parish,  and  held  meetings  on  two  different  occasions, 
with  a  view  to  a  permanent  organization,  he  went  in  uninvited, 
and  having  obtained  leave  to  speak,  he  followed  the  preacher 
with  such  a  refutation  of  his  discourse,  that  they  were  discour- 
aged from  their  purpose,  although,  the  first  time,  they  were  so 


35 

angry,  that  they  extinguished  the  lights  before  he  had  finished 
his  remarks.  In  his  later  years,  his  pupils  came  to  look  upon 
him  as  a  veteran,  who  had  passed,  with  honor,  through  great 
battles  in  the  cause  of  his  Master,  and  listened,  with  delight,  to 
the  anecdotes  of  what  he  had  done  and  suffered.  But  the  chief 
charm  of  Dr.  Taylor  was  his  sincerity,  and  his  affectionate  de- 
votedness  to  his  students.  They  knew  that  he  had  no  feeling 
towards  them  which  he  did  not  freely  express.  His  heart  was 
open  :  and  how  large  and  generous  it  was  !  He  gave  himself 
to  his  pupils,  confiding  to  them  everything  in  his  mind,  and  in 
his  history  ;  spending  hours  after  his  lecture  in  discussion  with 
them,  or  in  friendly  and  instructive  conversation  ;  begrudging 
no  time,  precious  as  he  deemed  it,  which  they  took  from  him. 
He  loved  young  men.  He  loved  their  warmth,  their  willingness 
to  look  at  new  truth,  their  frankness,  their  bright  hopes  of  the 
future.  His  tenderness  was  the  more  dear  for  the  native  dignity 
of  his  demeanor,  and  his  entire  freedom  from  the  least  taint  of 
sentimentalism.  To  strangers,  he  did  not  always  appear  to  have 
so  kind  a  heart,  and  his  love  was  the  more  beautiful  as  it  came 
gushing  through  a  thin  crust  of  seeming  austerity.  He  allowed 
no  unseemly  familiarity,  and,  when  offended,  he  spoke  out  his 
rebuke  on  the  instant,  in  blunt  terms.  But  here  the  matter 
ended.  No  animosity  lingered  in  his  mind.  This  he  appeared 
desirious  to  indicate  by  his  marked  kindness,  afterwards,  to  any 
person  who  had  incurred  his  censure.  Not  long  ago,  he  men- 
tioned to  me  that,  the  day  before,  he  had  reproved  one  of  his 
class  with  more  severity,  perhaps,  than  the  case  required  ;  ex- 
pressing, at  the  same  time,  his  grief,  and  adding,  that  he  had 
been  kept  awake  a  great  part  of  the  night,  by  the  thought  that 
Christ  would  not  have  spoken  so.  Who  will  wonder  that  such 
a  man  drew  to  him  the  affections  of  his  pupils  ?  He  has  mould- 
ed the  opinions  of  a  great  number  of  men,  whom  he  has  either 
instructed,  or  conferred  with,  on  the  nature  of  the  Gospel. 
Through  them,  his  influence  has  been  widely  exerted  on  the 
ministry  of  the  various  denominations  throughout  the  country, 
modifying,  everywhere,  the  type  of  theology,  and  the  prevalent 
tone  of  preaching.  There  are  many  who  do  not  subscribe  to  his 
philosophical  tenets,  and  many  more  who  know  little  of  him, 
who  still  preach  in  a  way  quite  different  from  that  in  which  they 
would  have  preached,  had  he  not  lived.  He  has  been  properly 
styled  the  last  of  our  New  England  Schoolmen, — in  the  special 
themes  which  absorbed  his  attention,  in  his  method  of  handling 
them,  and  in  the  extent  of  his  influence  over  the  clergy,  the 
compeer  of  Emmons  and  Hopkins,  of  Smalley  and  the  Edwardses. 


36 

The  animosities  of  theological  strife  die  away.  One  generation 
stones  the  prophet,  and  the  next  builds  his  sepulchre.  The 
memory  of  Dr.  Taylor  will  be  generally  honored.  His  name 
will  soon  be  historic  ;  and  the  College  where  he  was  educated, 
and  where,  for  thirty-five  years,  he  has  taught,  will  be  proud  to 
place  it  high  on  the  list  of  illustrious  divines  who  have  adorned 
its  annals. 

They  who  knew  Dr.  Taylor  best,  do  not  need  to  be  further 
reminded  of  the  depth  of  his  affections,  and  the  religious  ear- 
nestness that  appeared  in  his  daily  life.  He  held  a  stern  mas- 
tery over  his  feelings,  but  now  and  then  they  broke  through  the 
barrier,  and  the  floods  of  emotion  that  poured  forth  betrayed 
the  depth  of  the  fountain.  How  he  loved  his  family,  those 
long  nights  spent  in  prayer,  when  temptation  or  distress  was 
impending,  are  a  touching  witness.  How  his  sympathies  flowed 
out  to  his  parishioners,  their  lasting  gratitude,  and  the  tears  of 
gray-haired  men  who  followed  him  to  the  grave,  are  a  signifi- 
cant proof.  The  cordiality  of  his  attachment  to  friends  and 
pupils,  is  seen  in  the  sorrow  of  so  many,  scattered  over  different 
States  of  the  Union,  and  in  distant  lands,  who  will  mourn  as 
personally  bereaved. 

In  the  last  days  of  Dr.  Taylor,  his  well-known  characteristics 
were  strongly  disclosed.  His  interest  in  political  affairs,  and  in 
the  passing  events  of  the  day,  was  undiminished.  His  enthu- 
siasm for  study  outlived  his  strength.  During  the  illness  which 
confined  him  to  his  house  about  a  year  ago,  he  entered  upon  a 
laborious  investigation  of  a  difficult  subject  in  Biblical  Theolo- 
gy, and  wrote  out  his  results,  amounting  to  an  elaborate  treatise. 
At  the  same  period,  I  think  it  was,  he  occupied  himself  with 
the  composition  of  an  ingenious  essay  on  the  cosmogony  of  Gen- 
esis, as  compared  with  the  teachings  of  Geology.  Of  late,  his 
strongest  tie  to  life  has  been  his  concern  for  his  family,  together 
with  his  unquenchable  love  for  his  favorite  studies.  Dr.  Taylor 
never  touched  upon  his  own  religious  feelings,  unless  he  was 
naturally  drawn  to  them  by  the  current  of  conversation.  He 
never  alluded  to  sacred  topics  for  form's  sake,  or  from  the  con- 
viction that  he  ought  to  appear  pious.  From  that  hateful 
species  of  affectation,  he  was  utterly  free.  He  was  too  sponta- 
neous, too  honest  in  everything,  of  too  robust  and  sincere  a 
nature,  to  fall  into  this  weakness.  In  character,  as  in  name,  he 
was  the  Israelite  in  whom  was  no  guile.  Sometime  since,  when 
compelled  by  his  infirmities  to  lay  down  his  pen  for  the  larger 
part  of  every  day,  he  casually  remarked  to  me  that  he  occupied 
himself  with  religious  meditation  ;  to  that  kind  of  meditation, 


37 

he  said,  his  strength  was  adequate.  More  recently,  -when  fully 
aware  of  the  near  approach  of  death,  he  expressed  his  calm 
trust  in  God,  and  his  desire  to  depart  as  Stephen  did,  uttering 
the  petition:  "Lord  Jesus  receive  my  spirit."  To  his  best 
earthly  friend,  he  said  :  "  When  the  time  comes  for  me  to  die, 
I  want  you  to  he  perfectly  calm,  and  when  I  am  called  to  go,  I 
want  you  to  let  me  go  ;  and  the  widow's  God  will  be  your  God." 
In  one  of  his  last  conversations,  he  indicated  his  unshaken  faith 
in  the  doctrines  which  he  had  taught,  and  his  conviction  of  their 
importance  to  the  world.  On  the  morning  of '  Wednesday, 
March  lUth,  several  hours  before  the  dawn,  unobserved  by  his 
attendants  in  the  room,  he  fell  asleep.  His  body  has  been  com- 
mitted to  the  earth  ;  his  soul  is  with  God  who  gave  it. 

It  is  hard  for  me  to  realize  the  fact  that  Dr.  Taylor  is  dead. 
I  expect  to  hear  his  familiar  step  at  my  door.  I  expect  him  to 
come  forward  and  greet  me  as  I  enter  his  house.  I  think  of  him 
as  an  aspiring  boy,  journeying  to  college  from  his  father's  house, 
his  future  career  all  unseen  before  him.  I  think  of  him,  as  a 
vigorous  youth,  grappling  with  the  hard  problem  of  Fore- 
knowledge and  Will,  with  the  determination  to  solve  it,  or  to 
die  in  the  endeavor.  I  think  of  the  beauty  of  his  person  and 
the  majesty  of  his  eloquence,  when,  in  the  centre  of  his  man- 
hood, great  congregations  hung  on  his  lips  in  rapt  attention.  I 
behold  him  as  I  first  saw  him,  an  old  man,  but  with  spirits  still 
buoyant,  and  all  the  energies  of  his  mind  in  full  exercise,  dis- 
coursing, in  his  lecture-room,  on  the  grounds  of  guilt,  and  re- 
sponsibility to  God.  I  see  him  as  he  was  but  lately,  when, 
weary  under  the  weight  of  his  years,  and  his  trials,  he  walked 
through  the  streets  with  slow  and  painful  steps,  pausing,  here 
and  there,  to  talk  with  some  old  parishioner  on  the  things  that 
pertain  to  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  and  again,  as  he  lay  in  weak- 
ness on  the  bed  from  which  he  never  arose  ;  and  at  last  I  think 
of  his  noble  ftatures  on  which  death  had  set  his  seal.  Yet,  his 
life  seems  unfinished.  It  is  unfinished.  He  has  not  died,  but 
gone  to  another  life,  leaving  the  worn  garment  of  mortality, 
which  he  needs  no  more.  Dark  clouds  may  settle  on  the  face 
of  the  evening  sky  and  seem  to  blot  out  the  sun,  while  that  lu- 
minary is  rising  on  other  regions,  and  rejoicing  as  a  strong  man 
to  run  a  race. 

Yet  his  earthly  life  is  ended  forever.  Never  again  will  he 
enter  this  sanctuary  where  he  has  so  long  bowed  in  worship.  In 
these  places  where  he  has  been  seen  for  half  a  century,  he  will 
never  more  appear.  That  deep-toned  voice  is  hushed  in  death. 
That  tongue  is  silent  forever.  Soon  all  that  was  mortal  in  him 


38 

whom  we  honored,  will  be  mingled  with  the  dust.  To  see  so 
much  manhood  fade  away, — shall  it  not  impress  on  us  the  van- 
ity of  the  earth  !  Shall  it  not  rebuke  the  pride  of  the  young 
who  feel  strong  and  safe  in  their  strength  !  "  For  what  is  your 
life  ?  It  is  even  a  vapor,  that  appeareth  for  a  little  time,  and 
then  vanisheth  away."  Let  this  solemn  event  turn  our  minds 
to  the  true  purpose  of  life,  and  teach  us  how  worthless,  by 
themselves,  are  all  earthly  things.  Of  what  importance,  now, 
to  our  deceased  friend,  are  the  admiration  and  reproach  which 
he  received,  both  in  so  large  a  measure,  from  his  fellow  mortals  ? 
In  itself  considered,  of  how  little  moment  that  he  rose  to  an 
intellectual  pre-eminence  among  them  !  Or  even  that  he  has 
built  up,  with  so  much  toil,  a  theological  system  that  is  called 
by  his  name  !  That  system,  whatever  value  it  may  have  at 
present,  will  be  supplanted,  and  in  time  will  pass  away.  For 
the  truth  does  not  abide  in  one  form  of  expression  :  it  is  ever 
showing  new  phases,  and  casting  off  the  alloy  of  error. 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day ; 

They  have  their  day,  and  cease  to  be  ; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 

And  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 

"  Whether  there  be  knowledge  it  shall  vanish  away  ;  for  we 
know  in  part."  "  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly."  In 
the  light  of  eternity,  our  departed  teacher  may  have  learned 
more,  in  these  last  few  days,  than  in  his  life-time  before.  He 
has  left  behind  an  influence  ;  he  has  borne  away  a  character. 
Our  joy  is  not  in  his  talents  ;  in  the  productions  of  his  intellect ; 
or  in  his  earthly  fame  ;  but  our  joy  is  in  the  belief  that  he 
lived  to  glorify  G-od,  and  that  his  controlling  purpose  was  to  do 
good.  We  rejoice  in  the  confidence  that,  in  the  great  ends 
which  he  set  before  him,  he  was  an  obedient  follower  of  the 
Saviour,  patiently  endeavoring  to  do  His  will  and  humbly  trust- 
ing in  his  His  mercy  for  salvation.  And  the  source  of  the  satis- 
faction with  which  we  review  his  life,  is  the  fact  that  he  was 
employed,  by  the  Redeemer,  as  an  instrument  of  turning  a  mul- 
titude to  righteousness.  To  the  Redeemer  be  all  the  glory  ! 

In  concluding  this  imperfect  tribute  to  my  venerated  and  be- 
loved teacher,  let  me  urge  the  young  men  of  this  assembly,  in 
whose  welfare  my  heart  is  deeply  interested,  to  follow  him  as 
he  followed  Christ.  Not  to  disparage  other  occupations  to 
which  you  may  be  inclined,  what  can  you  do  more  worthy,  than 
to  devote  yourself,  like  him,  to  the  work  of  a  Gospel  minister  ? 
What  object  can  you  figure  to  yourself  so  high  as  the  turning 


39 

of  immortal  men  from  sin  unto  righteousness  ?  Whatever  self- 
sacrifice  may  belong  to  it,  what  work  will,  on  the  whole,  yield 
you  so  much  peace  while  you  live  ?  Contrast  the  life  of  a 
faithful  preacher,  in  its  lofty  studies,  its  inspiring  and  delightful 
duties,  with  the  thorny  path  of  political  ambition ! 

But  aside  from  ths  consideration  of  temporal  happiness,  when 
the  hour  of  death  shall  come — and  it  will  come  much  sooner 
than  you  can  now  realize — what  life  will  you  wish  to  have  lived  ? 
At  the  portal  of  the  eternal  world,  as  you  look  back  on  the  past, 
what  work  will  you  be  glad  to  have  done  ?  0,  how  unspeakable 
is  the  privilege  of  him  who,  in  that  parting  hour,  can  take  to 
himself  the  promise  of  the  text  ?  Blessed  are  they  to  whom  it 
is  given  to  turn  many  to  righteousness,  and  to  shine  as  the  stars 
forever  and  ever ! 


OBITUARY    NOTICE, 
BY  CHAUNCEY  A.  GOODRICH,   D.  D. 

Professor  of  the  Pastoral  Charge  in  Yale  College. 


From  the  New  Haven  Daily  Palladium,  March  10,  1858. 

DEATH  OF  REV.  DR.  TAYLOR. 

DIED,  in  this  city,  March  10th,  REV.  NATHANIEL  WILLIAM 
TAYLOR,  D.  D.,  Dwight  Professor  of  Didactic  Theology  in  Yale 
College,  in  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age, 

Although  it  has  been  known  for  some  days  that  a  great  and 
good  man  was  passing  away  from  the  midst  of  us,  the  tidings 
of  Dr.  Taylor's  death  will  be  received  with  no  ordinary  feelings 
by  a  large  part  of  this  community.  There  are  few,  compara- 
tively, who  can  remember  the  time  when  he  came  to  live  among 
us.  To  nearly  the  whole  of  our  active  population  he  has  ahvays 
been  here, — known  of  all  as  a  man  of  pre-eminent  abilities, 
justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  preachers  of  the 
age,  sought  out  by  the  churches  of  his  denomination  as  a  wise 
counselor  in  their  difficulties,  revered  and  loved  by  his  pupils 
for  the  clearness  and  depth  and  solidity  of  his  instructions. 
Those  who  knew  him  in  private  life  will  naturally  recur  to  his 
admirable  social  qualities,  the  frankness  of  his  disposition,  the 
generosity  of  his  sentiments,  the  largeness  of  his  views  ;  his  ex- 
traordinary conversational  powers,  his  perfect  independence  and 
yet  courtesy  in  differing  from  others,  his  richness  and  originality 
of  thought,  and  his  remarkable  talent  of  giving  lightness  and 
variety  to  a  discussion  by  passing  "  from  grave  to  gay,  from 
lively  to  severe."  Those  who  enjoyed  his  friendship  will  dwell 
with  deeper  emotion  on  the  warmth  and  constancy  of  his  affec- 
tions, the  ready  sympathy  he  extended  to  those  around  him  in 
their  trials  and  sufferings,  and  the  strength  they  derived  from 
his  counsels  and  his  prayers.  All  will  unite  in  saying :  "  A  great 
man  has  this  day  fallen  among  us  !" 

He  was  born  at  New  Milford,  Conn.,  in  the  year  1786,  and 
graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1807.  After  residing  for  about 
two  years  in  the  family  of  Dr.  Dwight,  as  his  favorite  amanuen- 
sis, he  entered  on  the  ministry  ;  and  was  ordained  pastor  of  the 

6 


42 

First  Congregational  Church  in  New  Haven,  in  April,  1812. 
How  faithfully  he  discharged  the  duties  of  this  office  can  be 
testified  by  some  who  remain  among  us,  and  is  witnessed  by  the 
veneration  and  love  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  the  children 
and  the  children's  children  of  multitudes  who  once  sat  under 
his  ministry.  His  preaching  was  marked  by  extraordinary  clear- 
ness, force,  and  pungency  of  application.  He  had  great  confi- 
dence, under  divine  grace,  in  the  power  of  truth.  Hence,  he 
dealt  with  the  hearts  of  men  chiefly  through  their  understand- 
ings ;  he  enforced  the  claims  of  the  Gospel,  not  by  mere 
strength  of  assertion,  but  by  vivid  and  luminous  trains  of  rea- 
soning ;  he  turned  the  whole  at  last  into  an  appeal  to  con- 
science ;  and  the  leading  characteristic  of  his  preaching  was 
happily  described  by  an  eminent  divine  of  Massachusetts  :  "  He 
makes  everything  appear  great :  God,  man,  time,  eternity  !" 
His  ministry  was  eminently  successful.  There  were,  in  repeated 
instances,  powerful  and  long-continued  revivals  of  religion 
among  his  people  ;  and  these  seasons  of  extraordinary  interest 
were  conducted  with  so  much  judgment,  and  care  to  avoid  every 
kind  of  excess,  that  the  whole  community  around  saw  and 
acknowledged  that  they  were  no  mere  ebullitions  of  excited 
feeling,  but  were  marked  by  the  peculiar  presence  of  the  con- 
verting grace  of  God. 

When  the  Theological  Department  of  Yale  College  was 
founded,  in  the  year  1822,  he  was  appointed  Dwight  Professor 
of  Didactic  Thology.  But  in  accepting  this  office,  he  never 
thought  for  a  moment  of  relinquishing  the  duties  of  the  minis- 
try. On  the  contrary,  while  preparing  young  men  for  tlie  sacred 
office,  he  continued  to  preach  in  the  churches  of  our  city  or 
neighborhood,  with  his  accustomed  fervor  and  success.  For 
nearly  a  year,  in  1825-6,  he  acted  as  the  regular  supply  of  one 
of  the  societies  at  Hartford,  which  was  destitute  of  a  pastor. 
As  new  Congregational  churches  have  branched  out  from  the 
two  original  societies  on  the  Green,  his  counsels  and  aid  have 
been  called  in  for  the  furtherance  of  each  successive  enterprise. 
On  some  of  them  he  bestowed  an  amount  of  labor  which,  if 
reckoned  in  continuous  order,  would  make  months  and  even 
years  of  pastoral  duty.  Hence,  in  all  our  Congregational 
churches,  his  departure  will  be  felt  as  the  loss  of  one  who  had 
endeared  himself  to  the  hearts  of  hundreds  by  his  unwearied 
efforts  for  their  spiritual  good. 

As  a  teacher  in  theology,  it  was  his  great  object  to  make  his 
pupils  think  for  themselves.  It  required  no  ordinary  effort  to 
follow  him  tlirough  one  of  his  lectures.  They  abounded  in  pro- 


43 

found  principles  and  far-reaching  views,  which,  to  a  reflecting 
mind,  were  eminently  the  "seeds  of  thought."  A  gentleman 
who  exchanged  the  bar  for  the  pulpit,  once  remarked,  that  never 
in  the  severest  contests  of  the  forum  had  he  felt  such  a  tension 
of  his  faculties,  such  a  bracing  and  invigorating  effect  upon  his 
mind,  as  in  listening  to  the  lectures  of  Dr.  Taylor.  Nearly 
seven  hundred  young  men  have  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  his  in- 
structions. They  are  scattered  throughout  every  part  of  the 
United  States  ;  and  they  will  all  testify  that  the  great  end  at 
which  he  aimed  in  his  theological  system,  was  "to  exalt  God, 
to  humble  man,  and  to  bring  all  to  the  cross  of  Christ." 

Dr.  Taylor  died  of  no  specific  disease.  He  was  simply  worn 
out  by  hard  study.  About  two  months  ago,  he  was  no  longer 
able  to  meet  his  class  ;  and  from  that  time  he  daily  committed 
to  one  of  their  number  a  lecture  to  be  read  and  discussed  at 
their  daily  meetings.  He  told  them  his  course  was  ended  ;  and 
with  a  quiet  and  child-like  submission  to  the  will  of  God,  he 
resigned  himself  to  the  prospect  of  a  speedy  death.  To  one  of 
his  friends  he  remarked,  "  My  only  hope  is  in  the  atonement  of 
Christ ;  and  my  wish  is  to  die  with  the  words  of  the  martyr 
Stephen  on  my  lips, '  Lord  Jesus  receive  my  spirit.' "  His  closing 
hours  were  without  struggle  or  suffering  ;  he,  rests  from  his  la- 
bors, and  his  works  do  follow  him  ! 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTICE. 


MEMORIAL  OF  DR.  TAYLOR. 

This  pamphlet  will  be  forwarded  by  mail,  pre-paid,  to  any  part  of  the  country, 
on  receipt  of  the  price  (25  cents)  in  stamps. 


PROF.  FISHER'S  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE. 

A  Discourse,  commemorative  of  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Yale 
College,  during  the  First  Century  of  its  existence.  Preached  in  the  College 
Chapel,  Nov.  22,  1857.  With  Notes  and  an  Appendix.  By  GEORGE  P.  FISHER, 
Livingston  Professor  of  Divinity.  100  pages  octavo.  Price  25  cts.  in  paper ;  in 
boards  38  cts. 

The  above  Discourse  will  be  sent  by  mail,  according  to  direction,  on  receipt  of 
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THOMAS  H.  PEASE, 

Bookseller  and  Stationer, 

NEW  HAVEN,  CONN. 


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